Materials Science and Engineering A 375377 (2004) 577580

Microstructure and mechanical properties of spray

deposited hypoeutectic AlSi alloy
C.F. Ferrarini, C. Bolfarini

, C.S. Kiminami, W.J. Botta F.

Departamento de Engenharia de Materiais, Universidade Federal de So Carlos, Caixa Postal 676, CEP 13.565-905 So Carlos, SP, Brazil
Abstract
The microstructure and the tensile properties of an Al8.9 wt.% Si3.2 wt.% Cu0.9 wt.% Fe0.8% Zn alloy processed by spray forming
was investigated. The alloy was gas atomized with argon and deposited onto a copper substrate. The microstructure was evaluated by optical
microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Small faceted dispersoids observed
surrounding equiaxial -Al matrix were identied by SEMEDS as silicon particles. Sand cast samples with the same composition showed
a columnar dendritic -Al matrix, AlSi eutectic, polyhedric -AlFeSi and needle-like -AlFeSi intermetallics. In the spray formed material
the formation of the AlSi eutetic was suppressed, and the formation of the -AlFeSi and -AlFeSi intermetallics was strongly reduced. The
ne and homogeneous microstructure showed an aluminium matrix with grain size ranging from 30 to 40 m, and particle size of the silicon
dispersoids having a mean size of 12 m. Room temperature tensile tests of the spray formed alloy showed relative increasing of strength
and elongation when compared with the values observed for the conventionally cast counterparts. These results can be ascribed to the rened
microstructure and the scarce presence of intermetallics of the spray formed material.
2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Spray forming; Hypoeutectic aluminiumsilicon alloy; Microstructure; Tensile properties
1. Introduction
The hypoeutectic AlSi alloys represent the most widely
used alloy system for the production of aluminium cast parts
[1]. However, their use as structural materials have been
limited due to lack of ductility [2] caused by a microstruc-
ture composed of plate-like silicon particles and coarse in-
termetallics embedded in an Al matrix.
It is well known the modication treatment of the alloys
with the addition of sodium and strontium transforming the
plate-like eutectic silicon into brous form, which improves
considerably the ductility of the AlSi alloys.
Concerning the intermetallic phases there is a consensus
among the researchers that iron is the main impurity of the
commercial castings AlSi alloys. Due to its reduced solu-
bility in -Al matrix iron promotes the formation of inter-
metallics with aluminium and silicon. Earlier investigations
have demonstrated the detrimental effect of iron-containing
intermetallics causing a signicant reduction in the mechan-
ical properties, including impact energy and fracture tough-
ness [3,4].

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: cbolfa@power.ufscar.br (C. Bolfarini).
The volumetric fraction, morphology and size of en-
riched iron phases in aluminium casting alloys depend on
the alloys composition and solidication conditions. These
phases may appear as Chinese script, polyhedric, needles
(platelets), or angular globules. The size of these phases
generally becomes smaller as faster cooling rates are used
[5].
Among the Fe-containing intermetallics in AlSi casting
alloys, the -AlFeSi phase is the most undesirable due to its
needle form that acts as a stress concentrator which reduces
strongly the ductility of the alloys.
The use of very high cooling rates to produce nely dis-
tributed iron phases, or additions of trace elements to alter
the morphology of the -needles can counteract the nega-
tive effect of iron [6]. Therefore, rapid or near rapid solid-
ication processes are possible routes to inuence the for-
mation of intermetallics phases increasing the solubility of
the iron in the aluminium matrix and providing metastable
conditions to the formation of less deleterious phases.
Among these processes spray forming is a technique that
can be used to produce materials with some characteris-
tics of rapid solidication as supersaturated solid solutions,
homogeneous microstructure containing ne grains and
absence of macro-segregation. Nowadays spray forming
0921-5093/$ see front matter 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.msea.2003.10.062
578 C.F. Ferrarini et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 375377 (2004) 577580
is being used commercially to produce cylinders liners in
the hypereutectic Al25Si4CuMg alloy [7] and some at-
tempts are being carried out to develop advanced aluminium
alloys such as AlYNiCoZr alloy [8] and AlYNi
CoZr + SiCp metal matrix composite [9]. Spray forming
of the widely used hypoeutectic AlSi alloys could further
increase the application of these alloys as structural compo-
nents, which would be very attractive from an environmental
point of view contributing to save energy and raw materials
resources.
In the present work was investigated the effect of spray
forming on the microstructure of a widely used, hypoeutectic
AlSi alloy with composition similar to the A380 and also
evaluated the tensile properties of the deposits.
2. Experimental procedure
The composition of the material used in this work is shown
in Table 1 and is similar to A380 alloy. Thereby, it will be
referred to hereinafter as alloy A380.
The alloy was atomized with argon and deposited onto a
copper substrate, positioned 360 mm below the atomization
nozzle. Details of the equipment used was described else-
where [10].
Atomization pressure was set at 1 MPa and superheating
of the melt at about 680

C. In order to reduce oxidation of

the spray the atomization chamber was lled with inert gas.
The specimens were extracted fromthe centre of the deposits
for microstructural analysis and tensile tests. It was used for
comparison of microstructures and tensile properties data,
sand cast round bars with 20 mm diameter produced with
the same alloy composition. The alloy was melted down by
induction heating, degassed with hexachloretan and cast at
680

C, the same procedure as for atomization.

Microstructural characterization studies were conducted
on the polished and etched as-cast and as-spray deposited
samples by optical microscopy (OM) and scanning elec-
tron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spec-
troscopy (EDS). The grain size was measured using the
linear-intercept method, as described in the ASTME 112-84.
Table 1
Chemical composition of the alloy used
a
Alloy (wt.%) A380
Al Bal.
Si 8.94
Fe 0.93
Cu 3.24
Mn 0.18
Mg 0.04
Ni 0.13
Zn 0.8
Sn 0.03
Others 0.5
a
As determined by atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS).
The porosity level was determined by using helium pycnom-
etry.
Tensile test specimens were machined according to
ASTM E8M-00b METRIC standard from spray formed
deposits as well as from the sand cast round bars and the
tests were performed at room temperature.
3. Results and discussion
Fig. 1 shows the microstructure of the sand cast A380
alloy with the presence of -Al dendrites, plate-like eutec-
tic silicon and intermetallics phases in the interdendritic
regions. A relatively slow cooling rate associated with
sand casting process develop coarse microstructural fea-
tures of the alloy and the formation of two equilibrium
ternary phases, Al
8
Fe
2
Si and Al
5
FeSi, namely, and
intermetallics, respectively. The -AlFeSi phase has been
found with two distinct morphologies, Chinese script and
polyhedric form, and the -AlFeSi phase as long and sharp
needles that reached 150 m in length, as showed in Fig. 2.
The Al
2
Cu phase was identied in two distinct forms,
AlAl
2
Cu eutectic and angular globule morphology as it
can be seen around the -AlFeSi phase in Fig. 2. The mean
porosity measured for the sand cast bars was approximately
1.0% in volume.
Fig. 3 shows the typical microstructure of the as sprayed
deposit, observed by OM. There are signicant differences
to the conventionally cast material. It is possible to recognize
an equiaxial -Al matrix, average grain size of 35 m, and
near-uniform distributed silicon particles surrounding the Al
matrix, having an estimated mean size 12 m. The observed
grain structure was homogeneous through the deposit, indi-
cating that a good compromise between heat extraction and
deposition rate was attained during deposit build-up. In ad-
dition, no banded microstructure was observed in these de-
posits as described by Cantor [11]. Equiaxial morphology
Fig. 1. Optical micrography of the sand cast sample showing the eutectic
silicon and needle of -AlFeSi phase.
C.F. Ferrarini et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 375377 (2004) 577580 579
Fig. 2. Optical micrography of the sand cast sample showing eutectic
silicon and Al
2
Cu phase around the needle -AlFeSi.
of the -Al phase was a remarkable feature of this structure
and is ascribed to the extensive fragmentation and coarsen-
ing of solid phases during the build-up of the deposit. It has
been assumed that during this stage of the process the solid,
semisolid and fully liquid droplets impacting the surface of
the deposit provide a great quantity of nuclei that coarsen
due to the vigorous agitation and the cooling conditions at
this solidifying layer, resulting in an equiaxial form.
Concerning silicon and the intermetallics phases there are
still greater differences to the conventionally cast material.
In contrast to a typical eutectic observed in latters as well as
in spray formed hypoeutectic AlSi alloys of others works
[12,13], the silicon was identied without the appearance
of a eutectic structure in this work, but as isolated particles
similar to primary silicon in hypereutectic alloys. The pres-
ence of these particulate silicon have been documented by
other investigators working on spray forming of eutectic and
hypereutectic aluminiumsilicon alloys [14,15]. The forma-
tion of the microstructure in the spray forming is frequently
Fig. 3. Optical micrography of the spray formed sample showing the
silicon particle and equiaxial grain of the -Al.
correlated to the situation occurring in rheocasting because
both processes show strong agitation in semi-solid state
[16,17]. However, the rheocast hypoeutectic AlSi alloys al-
ways show eutectic silicon, while the spray formed material
of this work did not. The reason for this could be the signif-
icant differences between the two processes, respectively,
to the cooling rate and the situation of the materials before
agitation in semisolid state. The rheocasting has no step
which suffers rapid solidication as the atomized droplets
do, it says, the solidied droplets impact the deposit with
a very ne structure and play a very important role in the
subsequent microstructural development. In addition, the
reheating of the deposit due to the release of latent heat is
another factor inexistent in rheocasting. Indeed, the solidi-
cation conditions by spray forming of long range freezing
alloys such as A380 are difcult to be explained by clas-
sical theories of solidication, even of rapid solidication.
Further works are necessary to clarify this situation.
Identication of intermetallic phases in spray formed al-
loy was much more difcult than in their cast counterparts
due to their reduced sizes. It was realized only with the aid
of SEM with EDS. Fig. 4 shows the Al
2
Cu phases (the clear-
est phase) around a very small needle of -AlFeSi phase.
It was expected that the -AlFeSi could be substituted by
a metastable phase and its formation could even be extin-
guished. This fact did not occur, but the length and amount
of the -AlFeSi needles were signicantly smaller than the
ones found in the sand cast samples.
Approximately 4% of porosity has been observed in the
deposits and was uniformly distributed. The spherical mor-
phology and non-connected distribution of the pores sug-
gest that their formation occurred due to the incorporation
of included gas, a well-described phenomenon caused by
an excessive presence of liquid during the spray formation
[11,18].
The values on Table 2 show the data of the tensile tests
and also porosity values are as well depicted.
Fig. 4. SEM of the spray formed sample showing the Al
2
Cu phase around
the needle -AlFeSi.
580 C.F. Ferrarini et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 375377 (2004) 577580
Table 2
Mechanical properties results
Processing route Tensile properties Porosity (%)
YS (MPa) UTS (MPa) El (%)
Sand casting 114 135 1.52 1
Spray forming 121 179 3.74 4
Spray formed materials showed higher values for yield
and ultimate tensile strengths than that produced by conven-
tional casting. Taking into account that both materials have
the same chemical composition one can attribute the better
tensile properties to the fact that the spray forming leads to
microstructural rening, that means, smaller grain size, ner
silicon particles and scarce presence of -AlFeSi needles. It
could be reached better results if the porosity values were
as low as conventionally cast material.
It has been suggested that the intermetallic phases may
act as stress raisers and crack initiation sites that reduce the
ductility of the AlSi alloys, due to the lack of active slip
systems in the intermetallic compounds. In the deposits stud-
ied, the intermetallic phases, appears in small quantities and
size, instead of coarse-needles form, produced by conven-
tional casting. This, possibly, led to a signicant difference
between elongations.
4. Conclusions
The processing parameters used for the present spray
forming experiments resulted in rened microstructure
(small grain sizes and better Si distribution) as well as
rened intermetallic phases, which improved mechanical
properties of material as a whole. There are possibilities to
increase the tensile properties by reducing the porosity of
the deposits.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank CNPq-Proj.471424/01-3,
MCT/PRONEX 98, CCDM/UFSCar/UNESP and FAPESP
Projeto temtico for nancial support.
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