Effect of cooling rates on T6 Treatment of B390 Aluminium-Silicon Hypereutectic alloys

Abstract

This research aimed to study an effect of cooling rates on T6 treatment process of B390 aluminium hypereutectic alloy. B390 casting samples were casted with pouring temperature of 710°C and solidified in three different cooling rates of 33.33, 28.60 and 22.22°C/s, respectively using three metal moulds. After that samples were subjected to T6 treatment: solution treated at 510°C for 30 min and aged at 200°C at various times. However, after ageing, hardness values of as-casted samples reduced with increasing cooling rate. It was found that the specimen cooled with the highest cooling rate exhibited the highest hardness. Peak hardness values of samples cooled with cooling rate of 33.33, 28.60 and 22.22°C/s after ageing obtained from ageing time of 3, 6 and 8 hour, respectively. Furthermore, the result showed that morphology of primary silicon, eutectic silicon and Ali5(Mn, Fe)3Si2 phase presented in the aged specimen cooled with the highest cooling rate exhibited more globular, finer and distributed more evenly compared with the slower cooled samples. It can be concluded that rapid cooling rate increases concentration of a-solid solution resulted in shorter aging time.