Effect of Al-10%RE Interalloy Processed by ECAP on Microstructure and Properties of ZL102 Alloy

The Al-10%RE interalloy (containing La and Ce rare earth elements) was subjected to one-pass equal channel pressing (ECAP), and the effect of the deformed Al-10%RE interalloy on the microstructure, Brinell hardness and electrical conductivity of ZL102 alloy was investigated.The results show that with an increase of RE content, the coarse and uneven α-Al becomes finer and uniformly distributed, and the eutectic Si is transformed from needle sheets to thin short rods. When the Al-10%RE interalloy processed by one pass of ECAP is added to ZL102 alloy with an amount of 0.6 wt%RE, the average size of α-Al is refined from the initial 78 μm to 24 μm, and the average length of the eutectic Si is refined from the initial 20 μm to 7 μm.The Brinell hardness of ZL102 alloy is increased from 61.1 HBW to 68.5 HBW, and the electrical conductivity is increased from 17.28 MS/m to 17.95 MS/m.ECAP can significantly improve the grain refinement efficiency of Al-10%RE master alloy.