Abstract:The effects of pouring temperature and annulus gap width on the microstructure of the semi-solid A357 aluminum alloy slurry prepared by annulus electromagnetic stirring(AEMS) technology were investigated. The results show that low pouring temperature and narrow annulus gap are advantageous to obtaining the small spherical primary α(Al) phase. The lower the pouring temperature is and the smaller the annulus gap width is, the more uniform, the smaller and the more spherical the microstructure is. The microstructures obtained by the ordinary electromagnetic stirring and AEMS were compared. The results indicate that the primary α(Al) particles are globular, small and distribute homogeneously in the slurry obtained by AEMS. But in the slurry obtained by the ordinary electromagnetic stirring, the primary α(Al) particles are small dendrites in the edge of the slurry and they are large and rosette-like or dendritic in the inner of the slurry.

Key words: electromagnetic stirring; semi-solid slurry; A357 aluminum alloy