Processing of Al-45Sn-10Cu Based Immiscible Alloy by a Rheomixing Process

Abstract

The growing importance of Al-Sn based alloys for producing self lubricating bearing materials in automotive industries necessitates the development of new alloys for improved performance. The recent thermodynamic work by Schmid-Fetzer at Clausthal University of Technology predicted that the addition of Cu to the binary Al-Sn system makes the miscibility gap stable. With the guidance of the calculated phase diagram, experimental investigations were conducted on the ternary Al-Sn-Cu system to understand the solidification behaviour of this immiscible system under intensive forced convection. The experimental focus was to investigate the effects of shear rate, shearing temperature and cooling rate on the solidified microstructure.