The in-situ Ti alloying of aluminum alloys and its application in A356 alloys

1. Introduction Titanium is one of the most effective grain refinement elements of aluminum alloys. The grain of aluminum alloys can be effectively refined if containing up to 0.2% titanium, which results in improvement of mechanical properties and performance [1-8]. Titanium is usually added into aluminum melt by melting Al-Ti or Al-Ti-B (Ti/B= 5:1) master alloy. This requires strict control in melting temperature and holding time, resulting in the complicacy to control the quality of allo…

The in-situ Ti alloying of aluminum alloys and its application in A356 alloys

This research has investigated the in-situ Ti alloying of aluminum alloys and its application to A356 alloys and wheels through the evaluation of microstructure and mechanical properties, The results showed that stable titanium content can be obtained by adding a small quantity of TiO2 into electrolyte of pure aluminum. Under this approach, a greater than 95% absorptivity of titanium was achieved, and the microstructure of the specimens was changed to fine equiaxed grains from coarse columnar grains in the pure aluminum. In comparison with the tradition A356 alloys and wheels, the corresponding microstructure in the testing A356 alloys and wheels was finer. Although the tensile strength was similar between the testing and the tradition A356 alloys and wheels, the ductility of the former (testing) is superior to that of the later (tradition), leading to an excellent combination of strength and ductility from the testing alloys and wheels.