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Design of Electromagnetic TP-1 Test Equipment to Study the Change in Aluminium Macrostructure Under External Field

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Abstract

In the present study, a unique method has been designed and developed by integrating Test Procedure 1 (TP-1) Alcan test equipment with electromagnetic stirring (EMS). The investigation is mainly focused on the design of equipment, manufacturing and controlling the experimental parameters to manipulate the structure of the Al castings. The design allows aluminium melt to be solidified in TP-1 mould under directional and a combination of directional with forced convection solidification mechanism. The effect of electromagnetic stirring current or induced voltage on macrostructural morphology of pure aluminium has been reported. It was observed that with the increase in current/voltage, the columnar grains were replaced by the fine and equiaxed grains due to the induced force convection created by EMS. Temperature gradients were measured for each solidifying melt in TP1 mould. The variation in temperature gradient with respect to time duration for different values of current (6A, 9A and 11A) was investigated and it was correlated to change in macrostructure of the casting.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the technical assistant Mr. Santosh Nagwanshi of Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, NIT Raipur, for helping us during casting processes.

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Correspondence to Sanjeev Das.

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Kundu, A., Patel, D., Biswas, P. et al. Design of Electromagnetic TP-1 Test Equipment to Study the Change in Aluminium Macrostructure Under External Field. Trans Indian Inst Met 74, 1819–1826 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12666-021-02269-8

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