Electromagnetic levitation and solidification of ferrosilicon alloy and resulting microstructural evolution mechanisms

Abstract

In this study, to improve pulverization of Fe–Si alloy, the evolution of its microstructure under container and containerless solidification conditions were investigated using electromagnetic levitation melting technology. The results indicated that the microstructure changed from dendritic crystals during container solidification to equiaxed crystals with containerless solidification. With an undercooling of 280K obtained by containerless solidification, the pulverizing sensitive elements (Al, P) disperse better in FeSi2 phase. The equiaxed Si grains with relatively uniform grain size obtained under ΔT=280K are distributed in random orientation. High angle grain boundaries are significantly more present with the increase of misorientation within FeSi2 grains. This texture is closely related to recrystallization in favor of grain refinement, which is attributed to the melt oscillation and dendrites remelting-recrystallization effects occurring in containerless solidification.

Keywords

• Ferrosilicon alloy
• Electromagnetic levitation
• Solidification microstructure
• Undercooling
• Recrystallization