Grain refining mechanism of carbon inoculation on Mg-Al alloy

The processing parameters and refining mechanism of Mg-Al alloy treated with a newly developed carbon inoculant under different conditions were investigated experimentally in this work. Results show that the finest ??-Mg grain in AZ91D alloy can be obtained after processing at about 740°C, and the average grain size of ??-Mg grain decreases from about 180.4 to 85.6 ??m by adding mass fraction w _in = 1% inoculant into melt. However, no evident refinement was achieved with excessive inoculant for Mn-free Mg-9Al alloy. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) photo, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis on the Mn-contained intermediate phase and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results indicate that Mn element plays an important role in the heterogeneous nucleation of ??-Mg grain. In the early stage of solidification, Al-Mn-C compound particles formed on the surface of Al₄C₃ nano-particles should be the potential nuclei for primary ??-Mg and probably responsible for the grain refinement achieved in the carbon inoculation process.