Response to annealing treatments of twin-roll cast thin Al-Fe-Si strips

The new generation twin-roll casters are able to cast strips down to 1 mm and offer a notable increase in the casting speed and caster productivity. The thin strips, however, experience profoundly different temperature and deformation gradients in the caster roll gap and may thus require different down stream processing cycles. An attempt was made in the present work to identify the structural features of the thin-cast AlFeSi strip and its response to high temperature annealing treatments. The deformation introduced to the thin AlFeSi strip in the caster roll gap was largely restored by dynamic processes before coiling, producing recrystallized surface layers. When annealed as-cast, the grain structure was rearranged by an ordinary growth process at the surface and via recrystallization in the interior. The entire process was retarded due to the precipitation reactions, particularly in the immediate vicinity of the surface where the supersaturation of the aluminium matrix was the highest and the boundary mobility was severely impaired. The final strip structure was a coarse one. The entire section of the thin strip underwent recrystallization when the thin strip was annealed after a rolling pass. While some improvement appeared to be possible in this practice, a heterogeneous through thickness structure with relatively coarser surface grains prevailed.