Performance Comparison of Al–Ti Master Alloys with Different Microstructures in Grain Refinement of Commercial Purity Aluminum
Three types of Al–5Ti master alloys were synthesized by a method of thermal explosion reaction in pure molten aluminum. Performance comparison of Al–5Ti master alloy in grain refinement of commercial purity Al with different additions (0.6%, 1.0%, 1.6%, 2.0%, and 3.0%) and holding time (10, 30, 60 and 120 min) were investigated. The results show that Al–5Ti master alloy with blocky TiAl3 particles clearly has better refining efficiency than the master alloy with mixed TiAl3 particles and the master alloy with needle-like TiAl3 particles. The structures of master alloys, differing by sizes, morphologies and quantities of TiAl3 crystals, were found to affect the pattern of the grain refining properties with the holding time. The grain refinement effect was revealed to reduce markedly for master alloys with needle–like TiAl3 crystals and to show the further significant improvement at a longer holding time for the master alloy containing both larger needle–like and blocky TiAl3 particles. For the master alloy with finer blocky particles, the grain refining effect did not obviously decrease during the whole studied range of the holding time.
An Investigation on Grain Refinement Mechanism of Master Alloys Al-Ti, Al-TiC and Al-Ti-C Toward Pure Aluminum
The grain refining effects of Al-Ti, Al-TiC and Al-Ti-C master alloys on commercially pure aluminum were compared, and the grain refinement mechanism of TiAl3 and TiC among master alloys was discussed. The results show that: the grain refinement of the master alloys Al-TiC and Al-Ti toward pure aluminum mainly stems from the heterogeneous nucleation role of TiC and TiAl3 particles, but with the extension of heat preservation time of fused mass, its role of heterogeneous nucleation will decline due to dissolution of TiAl3 and aggregation and precipitation of TiC. The preferable grain refinement effects of Al-Ti-C master alloys toward pure aluminum are mainly due to the fact that when TiAl3 and TiC particles are acted commonly as heterogeneous nucleation particles, the heterogeneous nucleation effect of TiC particles will be enhanced because of the presence of TiAl3.
EFFECT OF SAMPLE PREPARATION ON WATER TREE RESISTANCE OF XLPE/SEBS BLENDS
The effects of an aromatic polymer, such as poly[styrene-b-(ethylene-co-butylene)b-styrene] (SEBS), and its preparation processes on water tree resistance, morphology, crystallinity, dielectric constant and dielectric loss tangent of crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE)/SEBS and XLPE/SEBS/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) blends were investigated. The XLPE/SEBS samples were characterized by means of differential scanning calorimetry, scanning electron microscopy, dielectric spectral analysis and the accelerated water treeing experiment. The results clearly showed that although SEBS was partially compatible with LDPE and it was dispersed evenly in XLPE matrix, the blends demonstrated excellent dielectric performances, such as dielectric constant and dissipation factor. The crystallinity of XLPE/SEBS blends was decreased with increase in SEBS content and it was further decreased with the addition of EVA. SEBS could effectively improve the water-tree resistance of XLPE and both SEBS and EVA were found to improve the water tree resistance of XLPE synergistically as expected. The differences in sample preparation processes could change the phase morphology and dielectric performance of the blends, and could also influence the dispersion of SEBS in XLPE matrix as well as the crystallinity of the blends. Different preparation processes led to different water tree resistance behaviours of the samples. The improvement of SEBS dispersion in XLPE matrix helped to improve the water tree resistance of XLPE.