Improvement of yield strength of LM24 alloy

Yijie Zhang

, Naiheng Ma, Haowei Wang

School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, PR China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 23 October 2012
Accepted 9 August 2013
Available online 20 August 2013
Keywords:
Yield strength
Aluminium alloy
Al
2
O
3
particles
a b s t r a c t
In this study, Al
2
O
3
particles were employed to improve the microstructure of LM24 and therefore, to
increase the yield strength and tensile strength of this kind of alloy. In situ Al
2
O
3
particles were obtained
by direct reaction between oxygen and Al melt at 750800 C. Microstructure examination shows that
the size of in situ formed Al
2
O
3
particles was about 12 lm, and interestingly, with addition of in situ
Al
2
O
3
particles, the coarse primary Si phase was disappeared completely. More important, the yield
strength and the tensile strength of Al
2
O
3
/LM24 are increased by 52 MPa, 16 MPa than that of LM24 alloy
with 0.1% Sb addition. The value of 181 MPa and 315 MPa is for yield strength and tensile strength of
Al
2
O
3
/LM24 respectively. Besides, the yield strength and tensile strength are 180 MPa and 314 MPa
respectively for Al
2
O
3
/LM24 alloy after remelting and casting. This veries that the improvement of
mechanical properties of such kind of material possesses stability and reliability.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
LM24 alloy was widely used for those elds where heat treat-
ment was not necessary. Therefore, the mechanical properties,
especially yield strength, of LM24 as cast state were very essential
for its application. Normally, Sb was used to modify Si phase to im-
prove the properties and microstructure of LM24. However, there
was only very little effect of modication by Sb on the improve-
ment of yield strengths. Interestingly, in situ particles reinforced
Al composites were reported that they can improve the strength
of materials because of the Orowan strengthening, such as TiB
2
,
TiC, Al
2
O
3,
AlN. The formation of TiB
2
particles was via chemical
reaction among K
2
TiF
6
and KBF
4
and Al at the temperature of
850 C. The reaction was written as follows:
3K
2
TiF
6
6KBF
4
10Al !3TiB
2
9KAlF
4
K
3
AlF
6
1
The experimental results of Lu et al. [1] showed that volume frac-
tion of TiB
2
particles were increasing with the reaction time be-
tween molten Al and mixture salts, and the yield stress of TiB
2
/Al
composites was 111 MPa, 179 MPa and 156 MPa for reaction time
of 15 min, 25 min and 35 min respectively. In the meanwhile, the
yield stress was 51 MPa for Al base alloy. TiB
2
/ZL109 composites
were successfully synthesized via mixture salt methods [2]. It was
reported that the ultimate tensile strength of TiB
2
/ZL109 was
376 MPa, where the value was 331 MPa for ZL109 alloy. By using
the same synthesis method, TiB
2
/Al7Si composites were prepared
by Kumar and his co-workers [3]. The yield strength of such
composites was increasing with increasing weight percent of TiB
2
particles. Its value of 83 MPa, 92 MPa, and 69 MPa was for 5%TiB
2
/
Al7Si composite, 10%TiB
2
/Al7Si composite, and Al7Si alloy
respectively.
To obtain TiC/Al composite, the process of direct reaction be-
tween Ti powders and C powders was employed by Jiang [4]. Dur-
ing this process, relative high temperature of 1050 C or even more
was necessary to complete the formation of TiC, In this case, the
source of Ti and C can determine the reaction progress and then af-
fect the quality of TiC/Al composites. The process involved decom-
position of CH
4
and reaction of nascent carbon was employed by
Khatri [5]. Following the CH
4
decomposition, the solid carbon par-
ticles are distributed and trapped in the alloy. Subsequently, the
reaction of TiC formation can be completed in solid or liquid state.
By using this method, a ne distribution of TiC particles of size 0.1
3 lm was obtained. AlTi melt and activated charcoal were se-
lected as starting materials to form TiC/Al composites [6], in which
a high temperature of 12001350 C was needed to complete the
in situ reaction. Also, the in situ TiC particles were reported they
can improve the tensile strength of Al composite signicantly.
The tensile strength was 189 MPa, 90 MPa and 155 MPa for Al
5TiC composite, Al and Al5SiC composite, respectively.
To synthesis Al
2
O
3
reinforced Al composites with different Si
content, directed oxidation process was employed [7]. It was re-
ported that the growth rates of composite increased with oxygen
partial pressure increasing for alloys with lower Si content, and
the higher processing times and growth rates can result in higher
porosity due to the coalescence of alumina grains. In situ Al
2
O
3
particles, with size of 100200 nm and irregular shapes, reinforced
Al composites were prepared by direct reaction between molten
aluminum and CeO
2
powder at temperature above 850 C [8].
0261-3069/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2013.08.026

Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 21 5474 7597.

E-mail address: robertzyj@sjtu.edu.cn (Y. Zhang).
Materials and Design 54 (2014) 1417
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For synthesis of AlN particles, the reaction between N
2
and mol-
ten Al was employed. During this process, the gas of nitrogen was
bubbled through molten Al at very high temperature of 1200 C
lasting for about 2 h, and the particles size of 25 lm was obtained
[9]. AlN and TiN hybrid reinforced Al composite was successfully
fabricated via reaction between AlTi melt and NH
3
at temperature
of 1300 C for 120 min [10]. The particle size of AlN was about 2
8 lm and TiN particles with the size less than 2 lm. Dyzia and co-
worker [11] had formed in situ AlN particles successfully by using
the same process held at 1000 C for 1 h with protective atmo-
sphere in the chamber, in which the particles size of AlN was not
reported.
During the methods of producing in situ particles, chemical
reaction via two or more reactants was always employed to obtain
particles. However, the main disadvantage of the chemical reaction
was that it needs relative high temperature to ignite the reaction.
To develop the economic production technology of composites, in
this study, Al
2
O
3
particles synthesized by direct oxidation of Al
melt were employed to improve the microstructure of LM24 and
therefore, to increase the yield strength and tensile strength of this
alloy.
2. Experimental procedure
In situ Al
2
O
3
particles reinforced LM24 alloy (Al
2
O
3
/LM24) was
obtained by direct reaction between oxygen and Al melt at 750
800 C lasting for 10 to 20 min. During this processing, O
2
was
introduced via Fe pipe of 5 mm in diameter wrapped by insulation
material. Samples for tensile testing of all materials in present
study were obtained by high pressure direct casting (HPDC) tech-
nology. Microstructure of materials was observed by Olympus
LECO optical microscope and scanning electron microscopy
(SEM). Mechanical properties of materials were tested by Zwick
tensile testing machine according to ASTM: B557-10, and the
crosshead speed was set at 1 mm/min. The standard round tensile
specimens with a diameter of 6.35 mm and a gage length of
50.8 mm were obtained. For comparison, LM24 alloy modied by
0.1 wt.% Sb addition was prepared (LM24 + 0.1%Sb). The composi-
tion of LM24, LM24 + 0.1%Sb, Al
2
O
3
/LM24 was listed in Table 1.
3. Result and discussion
Microstructure examination showed that the size of the parti-
cles was about 12 lm (see Fig. 1), energy dispersive spectroscopy
(EDS) analysis conrmed that this kind of particle was Al
2
O
3
. It
indicated that in situ Al
2
O
3
can be formed successfully through
the method used in present study.
Table 2 illustrated the mechanical properties of materials stud-
ied in present study. Interestingly, the value of yield strength and
tensile strength (UTS) of Al
2
O
3
/LM24 was 181 MPa and 315 MPa
respectively. Compared to LM24 and LM24 + 0.1%Sb alloys, the sig-
nicant improvement of yield strength of Al
2
O
3
/LM24 was ob-
tained, while the elongation kept at the same level. The
increasing of yield strength and the tensile strength for Al
2
O
3
/
LM24 was 52 MPa, 16 MPa than that of LM24 + 0.1%Sb alloy. To
study the stability of mechanical properties of materials after re-
cycle and reuse, the Al
2
O
3
/LM24 alloy was remelt and then HPDC
was conducted to obtain tensile samples. The yield strength and
tensile strength were 180 MPa and 314 MPa respectively for re-
used Al
2
O
3
/LM24 alloy. This veried that the improvement of yield
strength of such kind of material possesses stability and reliability.
For addition of 0.1%Sb into LM24 alloy, there was only a little bit
increasing of mechanical properties (299 MPa) than that of LM24
alloy (286 MPa). It indicated that the addition of Sb had limited
inuence on the mechanical properties of LM24 alloy.
The reason of signicant improvement of mechanical properties
of Al
2
O
3
/LM24 can be deduced from the microstructure revolution
of materials. Fig. 2 showed the microstructure of these three alloys
studied in present paper. As can be seen from Fig. 2a, the coarse
primary Si can be observed clearly, and its size was about 60 lm
in diameter. With addition of Sb into LM24 melt, the primary Si
phase also existed, but its size of 30 lm in diameter was smaller
than that of LM24 alloy (Fig. 2b). Very interestingly, with an addi-
tion of in situ Al
2
O
3
particles, the primary Si phase was disap-
peared completely (Fig. 2c). More important, the average grain
size of a-Al of Al
2
O
3
/LM24 alloy became much smaller than that
of LM24 alloy.
It was obvious that the increase in the yield strength is due to
the presence of Al
2
O
3
particles. Three factors may affect the signif-
icant improvement of yield strength, namely, small grain size, Oro-
wan strengthening and disappearance of primary Si phase. The
effect of Al
2
O
3
particles on the grain renement of A356 alloy
had been testied by Akbari [12], Mahallawi [13] and Sajjadi
[14]. The contribution of grain size and Orowan strengthening on
the yield strength of materials can be explained by HallPetch
equation.
The particle size of Al
2
O
3
in the matrix is relative small (1
2 lm) and they are well distributed in the matrix of the composite.
These are favorable factors for Orowan strengthening [15]. More-
over, the high elastic modulus of the Al
2
O
3
particles (530GPa) sug-
gests that it is more likely for the dislocation line to loop around
the particulates by Orowan looping rather than to cut through
them as in dislocation glide during the loading of the material.
The increased interaction between the dislocation loops provides
more resistance to subsequent dislocation movement and thus
Table 1
Chemical composition of alloys.
Alloys Chemical composition (wt.%)
Si Fe Cu Mg Zn Mn Cr Ti
LM24 8.7 0.9 3.3 0.5 1.6 0.8 0.07 0.05
LM24 + 0.1 Sb 8.6 1.0 3.2 0.5 1.5 0.8 0.07 0.05
A1
2
O
3
/LM24 8.4 0.8 3.4 0.4 1.4 0.6 0.06 0.05
Fig. 1. Morphology of in situ Al
2
O
3
particles within LM24 alloy.
Table 2
Mechanical properties of different LM24 alloys.
Alloys Tensile properties
Yield strength (MPa) UTS (MPa) Elongation (%)
LM24 138 286 4.2
LM24 + 0.1%Sb 129 299 4.7
A1
2
O
3
/LM24 181 315 3.3
Y. Zhang et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 1417 15
increases the strength of the material. If Orowan strengthening
was considered by HallPetch equation, the strength of the
in situ composite can be written as [16]
r r
0
kd
1=2

0:81Gb
p1 m
1=2
ln2r=r
0
k 2r
2
where b is the magnitude of the Burgers vector of the matrix alloy, k
is the interparticulate spacing, r is the particulate radius and r
0
is
the dislocation core radius.
In addition, the presence of Al
2
O
3
particles at the grain bound-
aries serves as effective barriers to the movement of dislocations.
They are effective hindrances to grain growth by the Zener pinning
effect [17].
Normally, for the LM24 alloy, there is no primary Si phase.
According to the binary phase diagram of Al and Si, the content
of Si at eutectic point is 11.7 wt.%. But for LM24 alloys herein, in
the case of the content of Si of 8.7 wt.%, the primary of Si was
obtained. Obviously, the existence of coarse primary Si phase for
LM24 alloy will deteriorate the properties of materials. In present,
the traditional and effective way to decrease the primary Si phase
was the addition of PCu alloy into melt. During this process, it will
take a relative long time and need a high temperature to melt the
PCu addition. The appearance of primary Si phase for LM24 alloy
studied herein may be attributed to the transfer of eutectic point
caused by the existence of Cu, Zn. But why there is no primary Si
phase occurred for Al
2
O
3
/LM24 alloy? It was reported that the
Al
2
O
3
particles can be acted as the nuclei of primary Si and eutectic
Si[1820], in which a small lattice mismatch of about 3% between
Si and c-Al
2
O
3
. Merckling etal [21] reported that the lattice mis-
match between c-Al
2
O
3
and Si is equal to 3.5% in the case of the
oxide lattice was rotated by 45 with respect to the silicon lattice.
If it works in present study, the size of primary Si phase should be
smaller other than disappearance. Therefore, further investigation
should be done to study the mechanism of improvement of yield
strength and the reason of revolution of microstructure for Al
2
O
3
/
LM24 alloy.
4. Conclusions
In situ Al
2
O
3
particles reinforced LM24 alloy was synthesized by
direct oxidation process, and the signicant improvement of yield
strength was obtained for Al
2
O
3
/LM24 alloy. The yield strength and
tensile strength of Al
2
O
3
/LM24 are 181 MPa and 315 MPa respec-
tively. Compared to LM24 alloy with 0.1%Sb addition, the yield
strength is increased by 52 MPa. The existence of Al
2
O
3
particles
within LM24 alloy can eliminate the coarse primary Si phase and,
to some extent, can decrease grain size of a-Al.
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