A new Al-Fe-P master alloy designed for application in low pressure casting and its refinement performance on primary Si in A390 alloy at low temperature

The requirement of good refinement performance at relatively low temperature (⩽720 °C) has restricted the development of inoculant in low pressure casting industry. In this paper, a new Al-Fe-P master alloy has been developed with amounts of small sized AlP particles. The refinement performance of Cu-14P, Al-3P and Al-10Fe-3.2P master alloys on primary Si in A390 alloy at 720 °C was compared and the mechanical properties were tested. Among them, Al-10Fe-3.2P master alloy exhibits the best performance. The coarse primary Si in A390 alloy can be refined from 126 μm to 27 μm by addition of 0.7% of Al-10Fe-3.2P master alloy. Meanwhile, the ultimate tensile strength and yield strength show an increase of 18.2% and 15.6%, respectively. The Al-Fe-P master alloy may be a promising candidate for application in low pressure casting industry.