Effects of Treatment Duration and Cooling Rate on Pure Aluminum Solidification Upon Pulse Magneto-Oscillation Treatment

The effect of pulse magneto-oscillation (PMO) treatment on casting grain size has been widely investigated. Nevertheless, its mechanism remains unclear, especially when PMO is applied at different periods during solidification, namely when only applied above the melting point. In the present work, the effect of PMO treatment applied at different segments during solidification was investigated. It was found that the dendrite fragmentation model may well explain the effect of PMO applied during the dendrite growth stage. However, only the cavities activation model may account for the effect when PMO is conducted above the melting point. In current study, the effect of PMO treatment on grain size was also investigated at various cooling rates. It was established that the cooling rate had only a slight effect on grain size when PMO treatment was applied. Thus, PMO treatment may provide homogeneous grain size distribution in castings with different wall thicknesses that solidified with various cooling rates.