Effect of neodymium on primary silicon and mechanical properties of hypereutectic Al-15%Si alloy

The mechanical properties of hypereutectic Al-Si alloys are mainly determined by size and morphology of the primary silicon phase. So, optical microscopy (OM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were adopted to study affection of Nd on primary silicon of hypereutectic Al-15%Si alloy in this paper. The results of OM showed that pure Nd could effectively refine primary silicon of hypereutectic Al-15%Si alloy. When Nd addition was 0.3%, the average size of primary silicon reduced from 20-40 μm of initial sample to 10-20 μm of modified sample. XRD pattern showed that no new phase was formed after Nd modification. The results of mechanical properties test showed that whole properties of modified samples were significantly improved. Tensile strength increased about 32.6% from 147 MPa to 195 MPa. Elongation was increased about 160% from 1.0% to 2.6%. The improvement of mechanical properties should attribute to primary silicon refinement after modification.