Combined effects of ultrasonic vibration and manganese on Fe-containing inter-metallic compounds and mechanical properties of M-17Si alloy with 3wt.%Fe

The research studied the combined effects of ultrasonic vibration （USV） and manganese on the Fe-containing inter-metallic compounds and mechanical properties of AI-17Si-3Fe-2Cu-1Ni （wt.%） alloys. The results showed that, without USV, the alloys with 0.4wt.% Mn or 0.8wt.% Mn both contain a large amount of coarse plate-like δ-AI4（Fe,Mn）Si2 phase and long needle-like β-A15（Fe,Mn）Si phase. When the Mn content changes from 0.4wt.% to 0.8wt.% in the alloys, the amount and the length of needle-like β-AI5（Fe,Mn）Si phase decrease and the plate-like δ-A14（Fe,Mn）Si2 phase becomes much coarser. After USV treatment, the Fe- containing compounds in the alloys are refined and exist mainly as δ-AI4（Fe,Mn）Si2 particles with an average grain size of about 20μm, and only a small amount of β-AI5（Fe,Mn）Si phase remains. With USV treatment, the ultimate tensile strengths （UTS） of the alloys containing 0.4wt.%Mn and 0.8wt.%Mn at room temperature are 253 MPa and 262 MPa, respectively, and the ultimate tensile strengths at 350 ℃ are 129 MPa and 135 MPa, respectively. It is considered that the modified morphology and uniform distribution of the Fe-containing inter-metallic compounds, which are caused by the USV process, are the main reasons for the increase in the tensile strength of these two alloys.