Impact of solutionising temperature on the microstructure, hardness and tensile strength of Al-6.6Si-0.3Mg-3Ni alloys

The current research deals with the effect of solutionising temperature on the morphological behavior, hardness and tensile strength of Al-6.6Si-0.3Mg-3Ni alloys. In this work, the solutionising temperature was varied from 450 °C to 480 °C. The chemical composition of all cast samples was identified by using Arc Spectroscopy. The hardness of the cast samples was determined using the Vickers Hardness test. It was observed from the present investigation that, as solutionisation temperature increases, there observed a refinement in the gains of eutectic silicon crystals which enhanced the hardness and tensile strength values. The value of hardness and tensile strength was found to increase as the solutionized temperature increased. The heat-treated alloys under this investigation possessed superior hardness as compared to the LM25/A356 and as-cast alloy.