Rheological Behavior of Semi-Solid AZ91D Alloy

The rheological behavior and microstructure of semi-solid AZ91D was studied using a Couette type viscometer. The results show that the apparent viscosity of semi-solid AZ91D increases with the cooling rate increasing when it is continuously cooled and mechanically stirred and the empiric relation of the apparent viscosity with the cooling rate and solid fraction at shearing rate 93.7 s-1 is expressed as η=[0.66 - 0.63e(-ε/3.01)]e(fs/0.14), and with the shearing rate and solid fraction at cooling rate 4℃/min is shown as η=0.55e(fs/0.11-γ/87.59), as well as the cooling rate and shearing rate have an important effect on the microstructure of the semi-solid AZ91D alloy slurry, and decreasing the cooling rate and increasing the shearing rate are favorable to the nondendritic evolution of the primary grains.