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Synergistic effect of Gd and Sr on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Al–Si–Mg alloy

  • Metals & corrosion
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Abstract

Al–Si–Mg alloys have received widespread application in communication, transportation and other fields on account of their attractive properties, e.g. superior castability, high ductility and excellent corrosion resistance. Comprehensive understanding of relationship between morphologies and mechanical performances under combined refiner-modifier condition is the prerequisite for the applications expansion. In this work, effect of Gd and Gd/Sr on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Al-9Si-0.4 Mg alloy was systematically studied. The results indicated that Gd had excellent refinement effect on α-Al but only partial modification on eutectic Si. Whereas simultaneous addition of Gd/Sr resulted in completely refined α-Al and modified eutectic Si. Growth of eutectic Si in untreated alloys show evidence of typical facet step growth mechanism. However, eutectic Si in Gd/Sr composite modified alloy mainly grew through impurity induce twinning mechanism and twin plane re-entrant edge mechanism, and facet step growth gradually weakened until disappearance. Based on these, both ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and elongation (El) of alloys were significantly improved and reasons were explained.

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Acknowledgements

Present authors appreciate financial support provided by Key R&D Program of Hebei Province (No. 22351003D) and Provincial School Cooperation Fund of Hebei province.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Material Science and Engineering, Research Institute of Foundry, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, 300130, People’s Republic of China

    Jiahang Dai, Xingchuan Xia, Yao Wang, Jiangbo Wang, Wei Xin, Enkuan Zhang & Jian Ding

  2. School of Material Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300130, People’s Republic of China

    Yongchang Liu

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Contributions

JD contributed to conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing—original draft, and visualization. XX contributed to conceptualization, project administration, writing—review and editing, supervision, and funding acquisition. YW and JW done resources and investigation. WX and EZ helped in writing—review and editing. JD helped in funding acquisition, writing—review and editing, supervision, and project administration. YL helped in supervision and funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Xingchuan Xia or Jian Ding.

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Dai, J., Xia, X., Wang, Y. et al. Synergistic effect of Gd and Sr on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Al–Si–Mg alloy. J Mater Sci 59, 5607–5621 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-024-09523-6

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