The Natural and Artificial Aging Response of Semi-Solid Metal Processed Alloy A356

Abstract

The heat treatment cycles that are currently applied to semi-solid processed components are mostly those that are in use for dendritic casting alloys. These heat treatments are not necessarily the optimum treatments for non-dendritic microstructures. For rheocast alloy A356, it is shown that natural aging prior to artificial aging causes the time-to-peak-hardness to be longer compared to the time when only artificial aging is used. Furthermore, a hardness plateau is maintained during artificial aging at 180oC between 1 and 5 hours without any prior natural aging. A natural aging period as short as 1 hour results in a hardness peak (rather than a plateau) to be reached during artificial aging after 4 hours at 180oC.