Self tempering effect of near eutectic Al–Si casting with different wall thickness solidified and cooled in permanent die

In order to study the self tempering effect on the solidification of Al–Si alloy, a setup was designed to conduct experiments. The characters of β phases in different thicknesses of Al-Si samples were investigated. The results show that the size distributions of β phases obey the logarithmic normal distribution. The Brinell hardness tests were also carried out. The tested hardness results show that the hardness distribution of the casting cooled in water is evener than that cooled in air, and its averaged value is higher than that cooled in air.