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Commercially supplied inoculation wires have a guaranteed chemical composition but not the size and distribution of individual phases, which are very important for nucleation. Therefore, two commercial alloys used for the inoculation of Al-Si alloys (AlTi3B1 and AlTi5B1) are investigated in this paper. The emphasis is placed on their structural analysis and the size and distribution of individual intermetallic phases. Furthermore, the grain refinement effect will be tested by adding these alloys to the AlSi7Mg0.3 alloy and testing the optimal amount of added inoculation wires. The results showed that the size and distribution of the individual phases in AlTi3B1 and AlTi5B1 meet the requirements for the successful inoculation of aluminum alloys, the intermetallic phases based on the TiAl3 phase are fine enough, and there is no agglomeration that would reduce the number of nuclei. This assumption was confirmed by adding these inoculants to the AlSi7Mg0.3 alloy, and it was found that the most ideal amount of inoculants added is 0.01 wt % when the structure was refined by approximately 32%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this work, Ti–Al–Si alloys were prepared by reactive sintering. The contents of silicon and aluminium ranged between 0–30wt.% and 0–36wt.%, respectively. Powders of titanium, aluminum, silicon and AlSi30 master alloy prepared by mechanical machining and/or milling were used for sintering. Powders were blended and pressed at room temperature. Sintering was carried out at 900°C for 30min. It was found that it is possible to produce compact materials with the structure corresponding to the as-cast materials when silicon is in the range of 15–20wt.% and aluminium content between 8 and 30wt.%. It was shown that these materials contain two phases—Ti5Si3 and TiAl. The central porosity can be reduced by induction heating. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]