Iranian Journal of Materials Science and Engineering

Over the last few decades, there have been many mechanisms proposed to describe the formation of the non-dendritic microstructures during Semisolid Metal (SSM) processing; including dendrite fragmentation, spherical growth, cellular growth and recalescence. Dendrite fragmentation is the most popular mechanism of all these hypotheses. It is the purpose of the present article to examine the morphological evolution of the non-dendritic microstructures, based on models proposed by Flemings, Vogel, Cantor, and Doherty during SSM processing of the Al-Si (A356) alloy. Based on new microstructural evidences, including (1) - plastic deformation at the side arms by slip lines formation as a result of the thermal fatigue mechanism, (2) - crack formation at the root of the side arms and (3) – the interaction of a rapidly sheared hot viscous medium with these regions, i.e. erosion; it propose and hereby discuss a new mechanism called "fatigue –erosion", for dendrites fragmentation of the experimental alloy. Optical and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with EBSD and EDS, TEM, and AFM was used for the microstructural characterizations.