The impact of partial drainage on chemical composition of 356 Al-Si alloy

Abstract

<jats:p>A novel method is introduced to investigate the macro-segregation in 356 Al-Si alloy. In this method, a portion of the remaining liquid is extracted during solidification of the alloy from the bottom orifice of a cylindrical sample. Different parts of the sample plus the extracted material are chemically analyzed and a good correlation between the chemical composition and the predicted values from binary Al-Si diagram was obtained. Comparing the chemical composition of the decanted alloy in the cast piece with those of the 356 standard range has shown that even with 15% of the liquid extraction, the composition of the alloy is still within the intended range.</jats:p>