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3D investigation of the microstructural modification in hypereutectic aluminum silicon (Al-30Si) alloy

A. Gourav Rao (1), V. P. Deshmukh, Leah L. Lavery, Hrishikesh Bale (2)

Microscopy and Analysis, Editorial, June 8, 2017.

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Keywords

Non-destructive 3D X-ray imaging; Hypereutectic aluminum silicon; AL-30Si; Al-Si alloy; Friction-stir processing; 3D rendering; 3D visualization

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Abstract

…Hypereutectic Al-Si alloy is an attractive class of engineering material that finds application in many critical electronic and defence purposes because of its low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), high electrical conductivity, and light weight as compared to other established alloys. The common problems in these alloys are inherent brittleness, low formability, and catastrophic failure due to the presence of a coarse primary silicon phase which increases with the increase in silicon content. In the present work, a novel approach of friction stir processing (FSP), a variant of severe plastic deformation process, is used for microstructural refinement…

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How Our Software Was Used

By using routine image processing steps, including greyscale thresholding and morphological operations, the data was segmented into the base aluminum material, silicon particles, and voids. After the segmentation step, the binarized images were loaded into the particle analyzer module to derive quantitative information such as total volume and size distribution of the silicon particles and voids. The software also enables grouping and fragmented analysis of the image data. The histogram tool enables a user to efficiently select a subset of particles based on certain characteristics and perform analysis on the chosen group. Additionally, the integration of the 3D visualization and quantitative analysis module enable 3D rendering of the overlaid quantified data.

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Author Affiliation

(1) Naval Metallurgy Division, Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL), Ambernath, India
(2) Carl Zeiss Microscopy, LLC in Pleasanton CA

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