Grain refinement of aluminium by TiC

In the present work synthetic TiC particles (nearly 5-10 mu m) have been added directly into molten aluminium by a specially developed injection technique, the details of which are presented elsewhere. Up to 2 volume percent of Tic could be added successfully while preventing oxidation of a particles during the addition process. After briefly reporting the results obtained from these experiments, it will be demonstrated that, considering the thermodynamics and kinetics of the ternary Al-Ti-C system with particular reference to the formation of Al sub(4)C sub(3) and Ti sub(x)AlC compounds on TiC, the `carbide' theory is highly suspect.