Short Communication

Mechanical and wear behaviors of Al12SiXMg composites reinforced

with in situ Mg
2
Si particles
Yavuz Sun, Hayrettin Ahlatci

Karabk University, Engineering Faculty, Karabuk 78050, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 21 September 2010
Accepted 5 January 2011
Available online 15 January 2011
a b s t r a c t
A study has been conducted to investigate the mechanical and wear behaviors of the Al12SiXMg alloys
(where Mg contents were 5%, 10% and 20%) cast by adding modiers such as Sr, red phosphorous and salt
mixtures. Mechanical properties were determined by hardness measurements, compression and wear
tests. Reciprocating wear tests were conducted by rubbing ceramic (Al
2
O
3
) and steel (AISI 52100) balls
on the unlubricated surfaces by applying the normal load of 2 N. The microstructure of the Al12Si
XMg alloys consisted of the Si needles and Mg
2
Si precipitates (two morphologies of which are polyhedral
shape dark particles and grey colored components of Chinese script) in the Al matrix. Results demon-
strated that volume fraction and size of the primary Mg
2
Si particles increased with increasing the Mg
content. Mg containing alloys exhibited higher hardness and better wear resistance than the Mg free
alloy.
2011 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Among the materials of the tribological importance, hyper-
eutectic AlSi alloys preferentially have received considerable
attention to wear related applications such as internal combustion
engines, pistons, liners, pulleys, rockers and pivots. Reduction in
density and thermal expansion coefcient, improvement in hard-
ness, ambient temperature mechanical properties (modulus and
strength) and wear resistance along with an excellent castability
can be achieved with addition of Si to Al matrix [17].
In situ composites are multiphase materials where the reinforc-
ing phase is synthesized within the matrix during composite fabri-
cation. This conicts with ex situ composites where the reinforcing
phase is synthesized separately and then inserted into the matrix
during a secondary process such as inltration or powder process-
ing. In situ processes can create a variety of reinforcement mor-
phologies, ranging from discontinuous to continuous, and the
reinforcement may be either ductile or ceramic phases [8].
AlMg
2
Si in situ composite offers attractive advantages, as a
candidate material, in future industrial applications. These advan-
tages include (a) weight reduction due to the low density of Mg
2
Si;
(b) better mechanical properties compared with AlSi
12
CuMg
Ni alloy at the medium high temperature and (c) low cost by using
Al, Mg, Si as starting materials [915]. However, the mechanical
properties of the as-cast alloys containing Mg
2
Si phases were not
satisfactory due to the brittle matrix and large Mg
2
Si phase
[11,14]. For further improvement of the mechanical properties, ra-
pid solidication and mechanical alloying have been used to pro-
duce the material with very ne matrix structure and in situ
Mg
2
Si particles. Unfortunately, such techniques are too expensive
and too complex to be accepted by the engineering community
for general applications. Therefore, preparing the in situ composite
by simple casting process seems to be the most hopeful route
when facing further commercial demands. Based on this under-
standing, most of our previous studies were focused on the
improvement of microstructure and mechanical properties of the
as-cast composites [1618].
A great number of researches are available in the literature
[13,1822], in relation to the preparation and processing of the
in situ composites containing Mg
2
Si particles as the reinforcement
materials. However, reports on the wear behavior of the in situ
composites appear rarely. Therefore, this study deals with the
mechanical and wear behaviors of the hot extruded in situ Mg
2
Si
reinforced Al12Si alloy matrix composites.
2. Experimental details
Commercially pure 12 wt.% Si containing Al ingot alloy and pure
Mg were used as starting materials to prepare the Al12SiXMg al-
loys. The Mg contents varied between 0 wt.% and 20 wt.% in the Al
matrix. The Mg was added to the Al12Si alloy melt at 800 C along
with 0.05% of Sr, 0.20% of red phosphorous and 0.30% of
NaCl + 30MgCl
2
+ 10KCl mixtures necessary for the renement
and modication of precipitations which were all preheated at
0261-3069/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2011.01.009

Corresponding author. Address: Karabuk niversity, Engineering Faculty,

Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Karabuk, Turkey. Tel.: +90 370 4332021;
fax: +90 370 4333290.
E-mail addresses: ysun@karabuk.edu.tr (Y. Sun), hahlatci@karabuk.edu.tr,
hahlatci@hotmail.com (H. Ahlatci).
Materials and Design 32 (2011) 29832987
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
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300 C before charging into the melt. In order to balance the oxida-
tion loss, the above additions were charged with an extra of
15 wt.%. Degassing was conducted by using C
6
Cl
6
before the cast-
ing. After cleaning the slag, the melt was poured at 800 C into a
chill mould to produce the rod shaped ingots of 20 mm in diameter
and 300 mmin length. After the casting, the rods were extruded di-
rectly to 16 mm diameter (corresponding to extrusion ratio of 1.6)
at 300 C. Chemical compositions of the investigated alloys deter-
mined by optic emission methods are given in Table 1.
Characterizations of the extruded rods were carried out in
terms of mechanical and wear tests as well as microstructural
examinations. Microstructural survey was conducted via an optical
light microscope (LOM) after preparing the samples according to
standard metallographic procedures. Volume fractions and average
sizes of the phases present in the microstructures of the investi-
gated alloys were quantied by using the line intercept method.
The phases were identied with Cu Ka on an X-ray diffractometer.
Room temperature mechanical properties of the alloys were
determined by hardness measurements and compression tests.
Hardness survey of the investigated alloys was measured on Shi-
madzu HMV2 microhardness tester by applying indentation load
of 2000 g with a Vickers indenter. At least, ten successive measure-
ments were performed for each condition. Round specimens with
20 mm of length and 10 mm of diameter were tested by a Dartec
Universal testing machine at a crosshead speed of 0.5 mm/min to
determine the compression behavior of the alloys. The results of
the compression tests were compiled by taking the average of
the decisiveness of ve specimens.
Wear performances of the examined alloys were evaluated in
normal atmospheric condition (20 1 C and 45 5% RH) by utiliz-
ing a reciprocating wear tester which was designed according to
ASTM G133 standard. The reciprocating wear tests were carried
out throughout the total testing time of 100 min by applying the
normal load of 2 N to the unlubricated surfaces of the samples with
10 mmdiameter ceramic (Al
2
O
3
-1577 HV
0.5
) and steel (AISI 52100-
55 HRC) balls in which average surface roughness (Ra) values were
0.2 lm and 0.1 lm, respectively. In this study, the sliding speed of
the balls on the surfaces of the samples was 0.02 m/s for a total
sliding distance of 120 m. After the wear test, the samples were
cleaned with alcohol and proles of the wear tracks were recorded
by Dektak 6M stylus prolometer. Results of the wear tests were
quantied in the unit of mm
2
, by considering the area of the wear
track calculated from the 2-D prole. After the wear test, wear
track of the investigated alloys was determined by a scanning elec-
tron microscope (SEM).
3. Results and discussion
Microstructures of the extruded Al12SiXMg alloys are shown
in Fig. 1. The microstructures were mainly composed of needle
shaped light grey colored phases, polygonal shaped dark particles,
Chinese script and white colored matrix. Porosities were not ob-
served in the microstructures. Considering the results of the XRD
analysis presented in Fig. 2, the microstructural constituents were
identied as Si (needle shaped light grey color phases), Mg
2
Si and
Al (white colored matrix). Mg
2
Si appeared in two different mor-
phologies (i.e. polyhedral shaped dark particles and grey colored
Chinese script phases) as mentioned in the literature [13,1822].
Table 1
The chemical composition of the investigated alloys.
Alloys Si
(%)
Mg
(%)
Fe
(%)
Cu
(%)
Mn
(%)
Zn
(%)
Ti
(%)
Al
(%)
Al12Si
0Mg
13.5 0.1 0.6 0.1 0.4 0.1 0.15 85.1
Al12Si
5Mg
11.3 5.2 1.5 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.05 81.7
Al12Si
10Mg
11.1 11.0 1.7 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.05 76.7
Al12Si
20Mg
12.2 19.1 2.1 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.05 65.9
50 m
50 m
(a) (b)
50 m
(c)
50 m
(d)
Fig. 1. LOM micrographs of the (a) Mg free, (b) 5 wt.% Mg, (c) 10 wt.% Mg and (d) 20 wt.% Mg containing alloys.
2984 Y. Sun, H. Ahlatci / Materials and Design 32 (2011) 29832987
Since the compositions of the investigated alloys were hyper-
eutectic, it is suggested that the polyhedral dark particles, which
were identied as primary Mg
2
Si particles, were in situ formed
during initial stage of the solidication process. Although the for-
mation mechanism of the primary Mg
2
Si particles has not been
clearly explained, the addition of the modiers such as Sr, red
phosphorus and salt mixtures to the melt may result in an increase
in the number of nuclei and change the morphology and size of the
primary Mg
2
Si particles [18,2225] by suppressing their aniso-
tropic growth by modifying both the solidliquid interfacial energy
and surface energy of the solid Mg
2
Si phase or poisoning the sur-
face of the in situ Mg
2
Si nuclei owing to the segregation of Na or
K at the liquidsolid interface [18,2022].
Details of microstructural examinations revealed that the pri-
mary Mg
2
Si particles were homogeneously distributed in micro-
structures (Fig. 1). The variation of the size of the primary Mg
2
Si
particles, the volume fraction of the primary Mg
2
Si and Si particles
against the Mg contents is seen in Fig. 3. Upon increase of the Mg,
the volume fraction and size of the primary Mg
2
Si particles precip-
itated in the matrix linearly increased while the volume fraction of
the Si needles decreased. The microscopic examinations also re-
vealed that, in the investigated alloys extruded at the ratio of 1.6.
Mg
2
Si components of the Chinese script and Si needles were re-
ned (Fig. 1b and c) and also the morphology of the primary Mg
2
Si
particles became irregular by increasing the Mg content [26]. As
seen in Fig. 1d, to generate the primary and Chinese script Mg
2
Si,
almost all of Si element reacted with Mg [27] in the Al12Si
20Mg alloy;
2Mg Si Mg
2
Si 1
Therefore free Si needles did not observe in the microstructure of
the Al12Si20Mg alloy.
The results of the room temperature mechanical tests against
the Mg content of the investigated alloys are charted in Fig. 4. An
increase in the hardness and compression strength was observed
to be derived from the increase in the Mg content and decrease
in the Si needles of the alloys, which is attributed to the increment
of the primary Mg
2
Si volume fraction and size. The addition of the
10 wt.% Mg yielded the hardness value of 80 HV
2
, which is 30%
higher than the hardness of the Mg free alloy. Further addition of
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Angle (2 )
I
n
t
e
n
s
i
t
y
Si
2
Al
Mg Si

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Fig. 2. XRD patterns of the (a) Mg free, (b) 5 wt.% Mg, (c) 10 wt.% Mg and (d) 20 wt.%
Mg containing alloys.
0 5 10 15 20
Mg Content (wt. %)
0
10
20
30
40
50
P
a
r
t
i
c
l
e

V
o
l
u
m
e

F
r
a
c
t
i
o
n

(
%
)
0
10
20
30
40
50
P
a
r
t
i
c
l
e

S
i
z
e

(



m
)
Symbol
Volume Fraction of The Primary Mg2Si
Size of the Primary Mg2Si
Volume Fraction of the Si

Fig. 3. The effect of Mg content of the alloy on the volume fraction and size of the
primary Mg
2
Si and Si particles.
0 5 10 15 20
Mg Content (wt. %)
0
40
80
120
160
200
B
u
l
k

H
a
r
d
n
e
s
s

(
H
V



)
2
0 5 10 15 20
Mg Content (wt. %)
300
400
500
600
C
o
m
p
r
e
s
s
i
o
n

S
t
r
e
n
g
t
h

(
M
P
a
)
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4. The effect of Mg content on the (a) hardness and (b) compression strength of
the investigated alloys.
Y. Sun, H. Ahlatci / Materials and Design 32 (2011) 29832987 2985
the Mg resulted in severe hardening. The hardness of the Al12Si
20Mg alloy was almost two times of that of the Al12Si10Mg al-
loy. The increase in compression strength is continual along with
increase in the Mg content. The mechanism of hardening was
believed to be due to the combination of solid solution and forma-
tion of the in situ particles being obstacles to the movement of dis-
locations [28,29].
The results of the wear tests conducted by rubbing the ceramic
and steel balls on the surface are described in Fig. 5. The addition of
the Mg to the investigated alloys reduced the area of the wear track
(henceforth referred as wear loss) developed on the surface of the
alloys. The ceramic ball caused relatively higher wear loss owing to
its higher hardness as compared to the steel ball. The decrease of
the wear loss with increasing the Mg content of the alloys is attrib-
uted to the strengthening of the alloys by the precipitation of the
primary Mg
2
Si particles. In the case of the Al12Si20Mg alloy,
better protection of the matrix (Fig. 4), worn by both the ceramic
and steel balls, was observed probably due to more coarser Mg
2
Si
particles [3034] as compared to the other alloys studied. The wear
behavior of the composites is affected by various parameters such
as type, size and volume fraction of the reinforcement. In most
cases the wear resistance increased with increasing size of rein-
forcements [27,28,33,35,36]. However it has not been improved
(in some cases it was even weakened) when the wear took place
by delamination and or particle fracture mechanism. Generally
the wear resistance of composites has been improved by increasing
the volume fraction of the reinforcements [27].
SEM micrographs of the wear tracks developed on the surfaces
of the investigated alloys during dry sliding wear tests using Al
2
O
3
and steel balls are given in Fig. 6. Dry sliding wear generated the
wear tracks having the characteristics of abrasive and mostly adhe-
sive wear surface appearance (Fig. 6). Therefore, the steel ball pro-
vided the adhesive wear characteristics on the alloys, while the
ceramic ball caused abrasive wear. SEM micrographs of the alloys
which were worn by steel ball show regions from which the mate-
rial brake off while Al
2
O
3
ball made clear grooves on the surface of
the alloy (Fig. 6). It was seen that the magnitude of the damage on
the alloy surface decreased as the Mg content of the alloy
increased.
4. Conclusion
The following conclusions can be drawn from the results of the
present investigation conducted on the hot extruded Al12SiXMg
alloy, which has varying Mg contents between 0 and 20 wt.% in the
Al matrix.
0 5 10 15 20
Mg Content (wt. %)
0.00
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
W
e
a
r

T
r
a
c
k

A
r
e
a

(
m
m


)

CounterfaceType Symbol
Ceramic ball
Steel ball
2
Wear Track
Area
Fig. 5. The effect of the Mg content on the area of the wear tracks developed by
ceramic and steel balls.
(b)
500 m
(a)
500 m
(c)
(d)
500 m 500 m
Fig. 6. SEM micrographs of the inner regions of the wear tracks produced on (a) Mg free worn by steel ball, (b) 20% Mg worn by steel ball and (c) Mg free worn by Al
2
O
3
ball,
(d) 20% Mg worn by Al
2
O
3
ball.
2986 Y. Sun, H. Ahlatci / Materials and Design 32 (2011) 29832987
1. The microstructure of the Al12SiXMg alloys consisted of the
Si needles and Mg
2
Si precipitates (as primary polygonal precip-
itates and as a component of Chinese script) in the Al matrix.
The volume fraction and size of the primary polygonal Mg
2
Si
particles increased as long as the Mg content of the alloy
increased.
2. The Mg addition increased the bulk hardness, compressive
strength and wear resistance of the Al12SiXMg alloys, which
is attributed to the increase of the Mg
2
Si precipitation.
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