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Solidification of pure aluminium affected by a pulsed electrical field and electromagnetic stirring

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Abstract

This paper presents experimental investigations on the impact of a pulsed electric current and a travelling magnetic field on the solidification of unalloyed aluminium with different purity grades. Pure aluminium (99.997 and 99.9999 wt% Al) has been solidified under the influence of both electric current pulses and a travelling magnetic field for electromagnetic melt stirring. The electric current was applied by means of two parallel electrodes immersed into the melt through the free surface. In contradistinction to well-known investigations in solute-rich alloys or recently published studies for pure aluminium in our experiments, we did not observe a grain refinement effect which can be attributed to the melt treatment applied. It becomes obvious that a slight contamination of the basic raw material by an impure processing during melt preparation has a more pronounced influence on the grain structure as the melt agitation provided by applying electric currents or magnetic fields.

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Acknowledgements

The research is supported by the German Helmholtz Association in the form of the Helmholtz-Alliance “LIMTECH”. Yunhu Zhang is very grateful to the China Scholarship Council for funding the scholarship under the grant 2011689010.

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  1. MHD Department, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), P.O. Box 510119, 01314, Dresden, Germany

    Y. H. Zhang, D. Räbiger & S. Eckert

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  1. Y. H. Zhang
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  2. D. Räbiger
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  3. S. Eckert
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Correspondence to Y. H. Zhang.

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Zhang, Y.H., Räbiger, D. & Eckert, S. Solidification of pure aluminium affected by a pulsed electrical field and electromagnetic stirring. J Mater Sci 51, 2153–2159 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-015-9525-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-015-9525-8

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