Analysis of the solidification path of Al-Si9-Cu(1-4) alloys using thermal analysis technique

Abstract

The present work displays the potential of cooling curve analysis to characterize the solidification path of Al-
Si9-Cu(1-4) alloys. In additions the possibility of quantifying the Cu enriched phases in these alloys by using
thermal analysis (TA) technique has been investigated. The proposed methodology is based on the following
procedure: a total amount of the Cu enriched phases is defined as the ratio of the area between the first
derivative of the cooling curve and the hypothetical solidification path of the Al-Si-Cu eutectic to the total area
between the first derivative of the cooling curve and the base line. These calculations based on the cooling
curve analyses are compared with Image Analysis (IA) and chemical analysis results in order to verify the
proposed method. There is a good correlation between measured and calculated values for the area of Cu rich
phase of the Al-Si9-Cu(1-4) alloys.