Effect of Temperature Semi-solid Casting Process on AZ91D Magnesium Alloys to Hardness and Microstructures

Kusharjanto Kusharjanto (Department of Metallurgical Engineering, University of Jenderal Achmad Yani, Jl. Gatot Subroto, PO Box 807 (PINDAD), Bandung, 40285, West Java, Indonesia)
Sutarno Sutarno (Department of Metallurgical Engineering, University of Jenderal Achmad Yani, Jl. Gatot Subroto, PO Box 807 (PINDAD), Bandung, 40285, West Java, Indonesia)
R. Henny Mulyani (Department of Metallurgical Engineering, University of Jenderal Achmad Yani, Jl. Gatot Subroto, PO Box 807 (PINDAD), Bandung, 40285, West Java, Indonesia)

Indonesian Journal of Physics (IJP)
Vol 30 No 1 (2019): Vol 30 No 1 (2019)

This study investigates the effect of temperature semi-solid casting process for magnesium alloys AZ91D in an effort to increase the mechanical properties for the application of lightweight structures. In this experiments, semi-solid casting process is varied temperatures ranging from 500, 510, 520, 530 and 540°C. Results of hardness testing obtained the highest average is 64.4 BHN at a temperature of 500°C, which higher than the as-cast 42.56 BHN (an increase of 33.91%). The increasing of hardness occur because of changes in the microstructure of dendrite structures into globular grains, which have α-Mg phase and ß-Mg17Al12. Small spherical grain shape and spread evenly with a size of 40.08 μm obtained at temperatures of 500°C and size 77.2 μm at temperatures 540°C.