Materials and Design 50 (2013) 714

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Materials and Design

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Study on the effect of cooling rate on the solidication parameters,

microstructure, and mechanical properties of LM13 alloy using cooling
curve thermal analysis technique
V.A. Hosseini, S.G. Shabestari , R. Gholizadeh
Center of Excellence for High Strength Alloys Technology (CEHSAT), School of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Narmak 16846,
Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 6 December 2012
Accepted 27 February 2013
Available online 14 March 2013
Keywords:
Aluminium alloys
Microstructure
Shear stress
Thermal analysis
Solidication

a b s t r a c t
In this study, the effect of cooling rate on the microstructure, solidication parameters, and mechanical
property of LM13 alloy has been investigated. To obtain different cooling rates, an air-cooled graphite
mold, 3 sand molds with different moisture content, a water-cooled graphite mold, and a water-cooled
steel mold were used. The cooling rates and the solidication parameters were determined by using computer-aided thermal analysis method. Results show that with increasing cooling rate from 1.1 to 50 C/s,
secondary dendrite arm spacing decreases 65%. At higher cooling rates, the nucleation temperature of
reactions shifts to higher temperature, except the nal reaction, but the eutectic recalescence undercooling is eliminated. It modies eutectic microstructure and decreases parallel eutectic layers distance
from 23.24 to 4 lm. In addition, it reduced primary silicon particle appearance (PSPA) from 1.17 to
0.3. The equivalent porosity diameter also reduces from 72.5 lm to 27.8 lm. Shear punch test (SPT)
shows improvement of ultimate shear stress, yield shear stress, and normalized displacement at higher
cooling rates. Hardness has also been improved about 30 Vickers as a result of increasing cooling rate.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Al-Si alloys have been developed due to their good castability
properties like excellent uidity and easy feed-ability, suitable specic mechanical properties and formability, and high corrosion
resistance. Among these alloys, eutectic and hypereutectic alloys
are really attractive for their wear resistance properties and low
thermal expansion. They are converted to the ideal alloys to manufacture the automobile parts because of the high wear resistance
properties of these alloys. Also the addition of Ni causes the formation of high temperature stable intermetallic compounds to
enhance elevated temperature [14]. These properties lead to the
application of LM13 which is one of AlSi eutectic alloys as a
decent material for automobile pistons [5].
Cooling rate is one of the most important variables which
affects microstructure and mechanical properties of cast alloys
[6]. High cooling rate decreases grain size, shrinkage porosity,
and causes more uniform distribution of porosity. Also, it modies
primary and eutectic silicon and decreases the size of them. Segregation between dendrites and grain boundaries decreases with
increasing cooling rate. Therefore, the amount of insoluble
elements is reduced [1,79]. Hajjari and Divandari [10] have also
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +98 21 77240371.
E-mail address: Shabestari@iust.ac.ir (S.G. Shabestari).
0261-3069/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2013.02.088

reported that a higher pressure in squeeze casting of 2024 Al alloy

has brought about a higher cooling rate and lower secondary dendrite arm spacing (SDAS). In addition to heat treatment [11] and
alloying elements [12], higher cooling rates have strongly affected
the mechanical properties and microstructure of near eutectic
AlSi alloys [5,13].
Computer aided cooling curve thermal analysis presents useful
information about the solidication latent heat, fraction of solid
during solidication, and the amount of different phases [1416].
In addition, it can show dendrite coherency point, degree of eutectic silicon modication, phase formation, and transformation temperature [7]. Solidication parameters can be calculated by this
curve at different cooling conditions. The metallurgical reactions
that have enough latent heat can be detected by the cooling curve
[17]. Although some reactions do not release enough latent heat to
be recognized by the cooling curve, the rst derivative of the cooling curve gives more details about these reactions [18].
Kumruoglu [19] have shown that a complex product such as
camshaft shows wide range of microstructure due to different
cooling rates. Consequently, obtaining the solidication path of different cooling conditions using computer aided cooling curve thermal analysis technique helps to predict the microstructure and
prevent the formation of casting defects before pouring the melt
into the mold. This is a signicant step to improve the quality of
the casting. Near eutectic AlSi alloy has four characteristics which

V.A. Hosseini et al. / Materials and Design 50 (2013) 714

impact on its microstructure and mechanical properties. These are

dendrite arms, eutectic phases, primary silicon particles, and micro-porosity. Wear resistance of this alloy strongly depends on primary silicon particles, and strength of the alloy has a close
relationship with the eutectic microstructure. In this work, computer-aided cooling curve thermal analysis has been used to study
the effect of solidication parameters on the microstructural features and mechanical properties of LM13 piston alloy.

Table 2
Cooling rates for different cooling conditions.
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
a

2. Experimental procedures

Mold and cooling condition

Cooling rate (C/s)

a

Thin air-cooled graphite mold

Low moisture sand mold
Medium moisture sand mold
High moisture sand mold
Thin water-cooled graphite mold
Thin water-cooled steel mold

1.1
2.1
3.1
4.2
5.6
50b

Merged in the melt to reach the same temperature.

This cooling rate was calculated by SDAS vs. cooling rate equation.

2.1. Materials and thermal analysis

The commercial LM13 alloy was used for this study. The composition of this alloy is given in Table 1.
An electrical resistance furnace was used to prepare the melt.
The melt was held in the 3 kg-capacity graphite crucible at
750 5 C. To protect the melt from oxidation, coverall ux 11
(preheated at 100 C) was used during the melting procedure.
Different types of molds and cooling conditions were used to
obtain different cooling rates which are presented in Table 2. A
K-type thermocouple covered with stainless steel sheath was used
for thermal analysis. This thermocouple was attached to a data
acquisition system and a computer. To record the timetemperature data, ADAM-4000 Utility software was installed on the computer. In each test, data were recorded with the frequency of 5
readings per second and then transferred to MATLAB software.
Adjacent averaging method over 30 points was applied to smooth
the thermal analysis curves.
Fig. 1 shows the thermocouple position and the thermal analysis cup which was used to take the melt sample from the crucible.
It should be noted that the thermocouple was calibrated with pure
aluminum (99.99%) before the tests.
The solidication parameters were calculated based on the data
obtained from Fig. 2a and Table 3. Three cooling curves were plotted for each mold and the average of the cooling rates and solidication parameters were reported.
2.2. Microstructural evaluation
After solidication and removing the thermocouple, each sample was sectioned at the tip of the stainless steel thermocouple
sheath for metallographic procedure. The samples were mechanically polished and etched with 0.5% HF for 15 s (ASTM: E003-11
and ASTM: E407-7e1). The microscopic observation was performed
using Unimet optical microscope (union 819 model) and Tescan
Vega II scanning electron microscope. Also, Quantitative metallography was carried out by means of Clemex image analysis
software.
SDAS was calculated for at least 20 measurements for each cooling rate. The same approach was used to calculate the parallel eutectic silicon spacing. To study the primary silicon particle,
roundness, aspect ratio, distance of a silicon particle from the nearest one, and also the diameter of about 50 primary silicon particles
were measured for each cooling rate.
2.3. Mechanical tests
Shear punch test (SPT) and Vickers micro-hardness test have
been carried out to investigate the mechanical properties of LM13.
Table 1
chemical composition of LM13 ingot.
Si

Cu

Ni

Mg

Fe

Mn

Al

11.20

0.93

0.91

0.97

0.1

0.02

Balanced

Fig. 1. Mold dimensions

tgraphite mold = 3 mm.

and

thermocouple

position,

tsteel

mold

= 0.9 mm,

SPT has been employed when a small amount of material is

available for mechanical tests. The detailed procedure and effect
of different parameters on SPT have been reported in several studies [2022]. In this work, because the mechanical property in the
exact tip point of thermocouple was very important, SPT was used
in order to investigate the samples with precise measured cooling
rates. In SPT, small specimens with the diameter of 6 mm and the
thickness of 1 mm were prepared. The die diameter of SPT was
3.1 mm and the punch diameter was 2.9 mm and the specimen
was sheared at a constant strain rate of 0.1 mm/s. Two shear punch
tests were carried out for each cooling condition which almost
showed the same results.
Micro-hardness test was also carried out using 100 g load
(ASTM: E384-11e1). Holding time was 15 s, at least three microhardness tests were performed for each cooling rate and the average of them was reported.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Solidication parameters
Fig. 2a shows different regions of the cooling curve and its rst
derivative. Table 3 also presents solidication reactions that are
detected in Fig 2a. The phase formation sequences during solidication were determined based on the Backeruds work [23].
To calculate the cooling rate (CR), slope of the curve at the temperature range of 590630 C was measured. Because of the narrow mushy zone in this alloy, the nearest temperature range to
this zone was considered to calculate the cooling rate.
As it is shown in Fig. 2b, all of the curves are drawn from 630 C,
except the curve having CR = 50 C/s. This curve is started from eutectic temperature. Since the cooling rate is too high and the heat is
released extremely fast, the initial step of the solidication occurs
too fast to be recorded. In addition, the rst derivative curve cannot

V.A. Hosseini et al. / Materials and Design 50 (2013) 714

Fig. 2. (a) Cooling curve and solidication parameters for LM13 alloy. (b) Cooling curves at different cooling conditions.

Table 3
Reactions detected from thermal analysis curves [23].
No.

Reactions

Solidication of primary a-aluminium dendrite and primary silicon

(nucleation temperature)
Liq. ? Al + Si + Al15(Mn, Fe)3Si2
Liq. ? Al + Si + Al9FeSi
Liq. ? Al + Si + Mg2Si + Al8Mg3FeSi6
Liq. ? Al + Al3Ni
Liq. + Al3Ni ? Al + A3NiCu
Solidication of intermetallic h-phase Al2Cu and other phases
Solidication end

2
3
4
5
6

arrest the latent heat released from the phase formation at high
cooling rates. Consequently, it can be concluded that cooling curve
thermal analysis is not an accurate method for high cooling rates.
Therefore, to estimate the cooling rate in this condition, SDAS vs.
CR equation is established which will be discussed later.
Table 4 illustrates the effect of the cooling rate on solidication
parameters. It is shown that increasing cooling rate increases
nucleation temperature. Shabestari and Malekan reported the similar result for 319 alloy [7]. The same results have also been reported for a magnesium alloy [24] and AC AlSi7Cu2 alloy [25];
while Backerud et al. reported a conicting result [23]. A few
researchers have discussed about the cause of this phenomenon
[7,25]. While the cooling rate increases, more nuclei particles are
created on the wall of the mold. These particles are transferred into
the bulk of the melt because of the convection. At high temperature gradient, the convection is enhanced and more solidied particles are distributed in the melt. It is also reported [26] that the
clustering of silicon atoms occurs at a higher temperature before
the nucleation of the primary silicon particles starts. When the
cooling rates and as a result undercooling increase, critical nuclei
size decreases which changes embryos to nuclei.

As shown in Table 4, eutectic growth temperature increases

with increasing cooling rate. Eutectic nucleation has two main
mechanisms: (1) nucleation on a-dendrites, (2) nucleation on the
active substrates. In addition, in hypereutectic alloys, primary silicon can also be a suitable substrate. Fig. 3 shows that primary silicon particles act as the nucleation site for eutectic silicon. Fig. 4
shows the distribution of silicon particles at the different cooling
rates. Very ne microstructure has been formed at high cooling
rates. In Table 4, the number of primary silicon per square millimeter is presented. The number of primary silicon particles increases
considerably as a result of higher cooling rates and it facilitates the
eutectic growth. In addition, ratio of the area to volume of dendrites increases with increasing cooling rate [7]. All of these places
play as nucleation sites for eutectic reaction. Therefore, similar to
grain rener additions [8], increasing the cooling rate increases
enormously the nucleation sites and eutectic temperature.
Increasing cooling rate not only shifts the primary phases and
main eutectic temperature to a higher temperature, but also affects
on the post eutectic reaction temperatures. Table 4 shows the formation temperature of these phases as a function of cooling rate. It
is observed that the temperature of reactions (3) and (4) increases
with increasing cooling rate, but it has no signicant effect on the
nal reaction (reaction (5)). At the higher cooling rate, there are
more suitable sites for the nucleation of intermetallic compounds
such as eutectic silicon particles. Fig. 5 shows intermetallic compounds which have grown on the eutectic silicon particles. It
should be noted that when the reactions happen at the end of
solidication, the effect of cooling rate decreases. This is because
enough suitable nucleation sites are available at the nal stages
of solidication. Table 4 shows the eutectic recalescence undercooling (TGrowth  TMin) vs. cooling rate. The reduction of recalescence
undercooling at the higher cooling rates has also been reported by
other researchers [7,14]. Recalescence undercooling is created
when the nuclei need driving force to grow. The minimum temperature occurs when the released latent heat for nucleation is equal

Table 4
Solidication parameters.
CR (C/
s)

TNucleation
(C)

TEutectic
(C)

TReaction1
(C)

TReaction2
(C)

TReaction3
(C)

Solidication range
(C)

Recalescence undercooling
(C)

Solidication time
(s)

1.1
2.1
3.1
4.2
5.6

575.1
576.2
582.3
586
588

570.7
570.5
570.7
571.6
572.3

536.4
535.9
537.2
541
NA

519.5
520
521
522
NA

512.3
511.2
515
511
NA

76
73
82
93
101

3.9
4.3
4.2
0.2
0

380
395
346
243
99

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V.A. Hosseini et al. / Materials and Design 50 (2013) 714

Table 4 also shows the effect of cooling rate on the solidication

range (Tnuc  Tend) and the total solidication time. The nucleation
temperature increases with increasing cooling rate. Also, the solidication is completed at the lower temperatures at the higher cooling rates [23]. These phenomena increase the temperature range of
solidication. Furthermore, the solidication time is shortened at
the high cooling rates.
3.2. Microstructure
3.2.1. Secondary dendrite arm spacing (SDAS)
Effect of cooling rate on the SDAS is shown in Fig. 6. SDAS decreases with increasing the cooling rate because of the following
reasons:(1) Increasing the cooling rate increases the constitutional
undercooling. This condition causes the formation of more secondary dendrite arms. (2) Increasing the cooling rate causes the interface of the liquid and solid to move faster [7]. Consequently, ratio
of area to volume of dendrite arms should increase in order to facilitate the heat extraction. (3) Increase of dendrite thickness is because of ripening and coalescence which needs diffusion and
time. But, when cooling rate increases there is not enough time
for these phenomena.
Flemings [27] presented Eq. (1) related to the cooling rate and
SDAS. In Eq. (2), a and b are characteristic constants of each alloy.

SDAS aCRb
Fig. 3. Primary silicon particles act as the eutectic nucleation sites.

to the heat extraction. After minimum temperature, higher amount

of heat is released compared to the heat extracted due to the
growth initiation. Thus, the latent heat overcomes the heat extraction and therefore, the temperature increases. At high cooling rate,
there are more active nucleation sites. Therefore, the minimum
temperature does not occur in these conditions, because these
nucleation sites need lower activation energy for the growth. Consequently, the recalescence undercooling is eliminated.

b = 0.30.5
Eq. (2) is obtained by tting a power curve to the results of this
study.

SDAS 50:7CR0:26

In Eq. (2), b is not in the same range which has been reported by
Flemings. This difference is possibly because of the different methods of calculation of cooling rate. As LM13 has a narrow mushy
zone, calculation of the cooling rate in this area is impractical.
Therefore, the slope of the cooling curve above the liquidus (linear

Fig. 4. Microstructure of the primary and eutectic silicon particles at different cooling rates.

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V.A. Hosseini et al. / Materials and Design 50 (2013) 714

Fig. 5. Intermetallic formation on the eutectic silicon (a) optical microscope (b) SEM micrograph.

Table 5
Shape features of primary silicon particles.

Fig. 6. Effect of the cooling rate on the SDAS.

part of the cooling curve before nucleation) is calculated for the

cooling rate. In this case, b is less than that of Flemings equation.
The cooling rate reported for the water-cooled steel mold was estimated by Eq. (3). SDAS in this sample is equal to 18.7 lm, and the
cooling rate is estimated about 50 C/s.
3.2.2. Primary silicon particles
To investigate the suitable eutectic silicon particles distribution,
SPA (silicon particle appearance index) was offered by Boostani
and Tahamtan [28]. In this study, a similar approach is taken into
consideration for primary silicon particles which is named primary
silicon particle appearance index (PSPA). This factor is based on the
aspect ratio, equivalent diameter, distance between primary silicon
particles, and roundness of primary silicon particles. Eq. (3) shows
the calculation method of this factor.

PSPA a  da =L  Ra

where a is the aspect ratio of primary silicon particles, da is the

average of their equivalent diameter (de = (4A/p)0.5), L is the distance between two adjacent primary Si particles, and Ra is the average of the roundness (R) of silicon particles (R = 4Ap/p2, p is the
perimeter of the particle).
As shown in Table 5, increasing the cooling rate decreases the
aspect ratio of primary silicon particles. High aspect ratio causes
fracture to occur easier [29]. The cause of this phenomenon is that
the transparency of the microstructure for dislocation reduces;

CR
Number (1/ Aspect
(C/s) mm2)
ratio

Diameter
(lm)

Roundness Area
Distance
fraction (%) (lm)

1.1
2.1
3.1
4.2
5.6
50

44.9
35.6
31.5
29.3
24.5
11.3

0.63
0.65
0.74
0.76
0.8
0.82

12
14
20
21
47
98

2.8
1.7
1.4
1.3
1.4
1.1

1.5
1.1
1.3
1.2
0.74
0.74

171
120
109
103
106
50

consequently, the slip of dislocation decreases. Thus, the probability of separation and cracking of second phases increases [28]. In
other word, thinner and longer primary silicon particles may act
as cracks due to the incoherent bond of their interfaces with aAl. Through the initial stages of primary silicon particles growth,
their morphology remains spherical. But it changes to octahedral
when the diameter becomes more than 15 lm [30]. According to
the simulation done by Peng and Fu-guo [31], the edges of harder
particles in a soft matrix act as stress concentrators and fracture
occurs from those sites. In the range of cooling rates between
3.1 C/s and 50 C/s, aspect ratio does not change signicantly,
while roundness increases continuously and plays an important
role to reduce the deteriorating effects of silicon particles.
Another important factor in the PSPA equation is the equivalent
diameter shown in Table 5 and show that da decreases with
increasing the cooling rate. While the cooling rate increases, the
number of silicon particles increases, because the nucleation rate
increases. Furthermore, diffusion decreases and fewer atoms attach to nuclei. Consequently, da decreases due to lack of diffusion
and higher amount of silicon particles.
Next parameter that affects the PSPA is the distance from a silicon particle to its nearest silicon particle (Table 5). When the cooling rate increases, the number of silicon particles per square
millimeter increases and consequently the average distance to
the nearest silicon particle should decrease.
The variation of PSPA with cooling rate is presented in Fig. 7.
PSPA at high cooling rates is less than that of low cooling rates.
Thus, increasing the cooling rate causes the better distribution of
primary silicon particles. According to Boostanis research [28],
improvement of morphological features of harder particles in a
ductile matrix enhances mechanical properties.
3.2.3. Eutectic microstructure
Fig. 8 shows eutectic layers space variation with cooling rate.
Increasing cooling rate has a signicant effect on the eutectic

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V.A. Hosseini et al. / Materials and Design 50 (2013) 714

structure. For instance, eutectic silicon becomes more lamellar

[32]. To investigate the eutectic feature quantitatively, the eutectic
layers spacing was measured using two methods. One of them is
the calculation of the distance between parallel eutectic silicon
particles. The second approach is based on following equation:

kA A=N0:5

In Eq. (4), A is the examined area and N is the number of eutectic

silicon particles present in this area [33]. kll is the parallel eutectic
layers spacing. Fig. 8 shows the distances between the eutectic layers calculated by using these two methods. It is clear that the eutectic layers distance decreases with increasing the cooling rate.
Eqs. (5) and (6) show the relationship between kA and kll with
the cooling rate.
Fig. 7. Effect of the cooling rate on the PSPA factor.

kA lm 50:4CR0:47

R = 0.94

kll lm 24:45CR0:48

R2 = 0.93
Some researchers [3335] have offered power relations between eutectic layers spacing and growth rate and temperature
gradient. Power of the growth rate (V) and temperature gradient
(G) have been reported 0.5 and 0.33, respectively [33]. These results show a good agreement with the results of this work considering the fact that V  G = CR.

Fig. 8. Effect of the cooling rate on the eutectic silicon particles distance.

3.2.4. Porosity
The content of shrinkage porosity between the secondary dendrite arms depends on how these zones are fed. Additionally, the
hydrogen atoms content in the melt and their release through
solidication are important factors for formation of gas porosity.
If the melt is able to run in the interdendritic regions, the size
and content of porosity decrease. In addition, at high cooling rate,
there is not enough time for hydrogen atoms to escape from the
solid lattice and become molecular. Since the formation of these

Fig. 9. Shape and size of porosities at different cooling rates.

V.A. Hosseini et al. / Materials and Design 50 (2013) 714

13

3.3. Mechanical properties

To transform load vs. displacement diagram to shear stress vs.
normalized displacement curve, following formulas are used [37].

Fig. 10. Effect of the cooling rate on the porosity diameter and area percentage.

Fig. 11. Shear stress vs. normalized displacement for LM13 alloy.

defects occurs at the end of solidication, smaller microstructure

improves their distribution.
Fig. 9 shows that the content and size of the interdendritic
porosities decrease with increasing the cooling rate. With increasing the cooling rate, dendrite coherency point (DCP) is transferred
to the higher solid fraction in AlSi cast alloys [36]. In other word,
at higher cooling rate, more dendrites with smaller size are formed.
Smaller dendrites with lower coherency point and extended mass
feeding should result in lower shrinkage porosity content of the
cast product. Furthermore, at higher cooling rates, the wall of the
mold is more decent place for start of solidication, thus, the directional solidication occurs from the wall to the center of the mold.
This situation enhances feed ability of interdendritic regions and
decreases the porosity percentage. Additionally, interdendritic regions are smaller at higher cooling rates because of the smaller
SDAS. Fig. 10 shows variation of porosity size and percentage with
cooling rate.

s F=pt Davr

Normalized displacement Displacement=t

Davr D0 D1 =2

where F is the applied load and t is the thickness of specimen. D0

and D1 are die and punch diameters, respectively. Fig. 11 shows typical shear stress curve of SPT. Shear punch test has been widely used
to investigate mechanical properties of an especial place for miniature test [37]. In this research, because the mechanical properties of
LM13 close to the tip of the thermocouple are important and preparing the tensile test samples from that place was impossible, so
SPT was carried out.
As shown in Fig 12a, increasing the cooling rate increases yield
shear strength (YSS) and ultimate shear strength (USS). It is caused
by several microstructural features. First of all, a more homogenized microstructure is formed by decreasing SDAS and a homogenous deformation occurs. In addition, primary silicon particles
have better distribution at higher cooling rates. Lower PSPA which
is formed at higher cooling rates affects USS and the normalized
displacement (ND), therefore, the more deformation occurs at
higher cooling rates. Also, increase of cooling rate and lower PSPA
improves the yield shear stress.
In LM13 alloy, the eutectic phases have the main constituents of
the microstructure. Therefore, modication of the eutectic silicon
particles caused by higher cooling rates could be the most important factor to improve the mechanical properties of the alloy.
Decreasing the spacing of the silicon eutectic layers leads to the
formation of more barrier against yielding of a-Al. Also, decreasing
the size of eutectic silicon particles decreases the detrimental effect of silicon particle on the initiation of the cracks. Consequently,
modication of this region can improve YSS, USS, and the ND at
USS point.
One of the important factors that affects the mechanical properties is the porosity content. Decreasing the porosity percentage
causes the higher surface to be sheared in SPT. It means that the
punch shear stress improves at higher cooling rates and lower
porosity contents.
Micro-hardness is also affected by cooling rate, which shown in
Fig. 12b. Increasing cooling rate increases the micro-hardness. Because of the reduction in both primary silicon particle spacing and
eutectic silicon particle spacing, modication of the microstructure
causes the higher micro-hardness of the alloy. In addition, it has
been reported that at higher cooling rate, more silicon atoms are

Fig. 12. (a) Ultimate shear stress, yield shear stress, and normalized displacement at USS point vs. cooling rate. (b) Vickers micro-hardness vs. cooling rate by 100 g force.

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V.A. Hosseini et al. / Materials and Design 50 (2013) 714

dissolved in the aluminum lattice [38]. Consequently, because of

solution hardening effect, movement of the dislocation becomes
difcult and it leads to the higher micro-hardness of the alloy.
Meanwhile, the renement of the structural features such as primary silicon, a-Al dendrite, and eutectic structure improve the
hardness values.
4. Conclusions
The effects of the cooling rate on the solidication parameters,
microstructure, and mechanical properties of LM13 alloy were
investigated through thermal analysis technique. The results are
summarized as follows:
1. Increasing the cooling rate from 1.1 C/s to 5.6 C/s, increases
the nucleation temperature of LM13 alloy within 12.9 C and
eliminates the recalescence undercooling. Solidication range
increases from 74 C to 101.7 C while solidication time
decreases from 375 s to 99.4 s. Effect of the cooling rate on
the intermetallic formation temperatures decreases by the progress of solidication. These results show the intensive effect of
cooling conditions on the solidication path of LM13 alloy.
2. Increasing the cooling rate from 1.1 C/s to 50 C/s, decreases
SDAS from 50 lm to 18.7 lm, and it follows from the equation
SDAS = 50.7CR0.26.
3. Lower PSPA corresponds to the more suitable distribution of
primary silicon particles. Increasing the cooling rate from
1.1 C/s to 50 C/s, decreases PSPA from 1.17 to 0.30.
4. Increasing the cooling rate renes the eutectic microstructure
and decreases the distance between the parallel eutectic layers.
Elimination of the recalescence undercooling can be the important sign of the eutectic renement.
5. Increasing the cooling rate decreases the interdendritic porosities and reduces the porosity percentage from 0.9% (1.1 C/s) to
0.1% (50 C/s).
6. All renements lead to the improvement of ultimate shear
stress, yield shear stress, normalized displacement, and microhardness.

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