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Materials and Design 31 (2010) 35183524

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Materials and Design


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Short Communication

Effect of Fe-rich intermetallics on the wear behavior of eutectic AlSi


piston alloy (LM13)
V. Abouei a, H. Saghaan a, S.G. Shabestari a,*, M. Zarghami b
a

Center of Excellence for Advanced Materials Processing (CEAMP), School of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Iran University of Science & Technology (IUST),
Narmak, Tehran 16846-13114, Iran
b
Supplying Automotive Parts Co., Km 12, Karaj Road, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 25 November 2009
Accepted 8 February 2010
Available online 11 February 2010

a b s t r a c t
In the present study, the effect of Fe-rich intermetallics has been investigated on the wear behavior of
eutectic AlSi alloy (LM13). Dry sliding wear tests have been conducted using a pin-on-disk machine
under different normal loads of 18, 51, 74 and 100 N at a constant sliding speed of 0.3 m/s. Addition of
1.2% Fe to the LM13 alloy leads to the formation of the ake like b-intermetallic compounds. These hard
compounds initiate micro cracks and can reduce the wear resistance of the alloy. The addition of Mn converts the ake like b-intermetallic compounds to the star-like a-intermetallics and decreases the detrimental effect of iron. Applying high cooling rate during solidication of the alloy containing Fe and
Mn, resulted to the formation of ner a-intermetallic compounds and improved the wear behavior of
the alloy to a great extent.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Wear is one of the most commonly encountered industrial
problems leading to the replacement of components and assemblies in engineering [1]. Therefore, many efforts have been made
to produce more durable materials and techniques to reduce the
wear of tools and engineering components. These include modication of bulk properties of the materials, surface treatments and
application of coating. Over the last few years, many efforts have
been made to understand the wear behavior of the surfaces in sliding contact and the mechanism, which leads to wear [2]. The applications of aluminium alloys for the machine parts are widely
increasing in the industry. However, little has been reported on
the wear behavior of aluminium and its alloys with the addition
of grain rener and modier [3]. Amongst the commercial aluminium casting alloys, AlSi alloys are the most common alloys having
some attractive characteristics such as high strength to weight ratio, excellent castability and pressure tightness, low coefcient of
thermal expansion, good thermal conductivity, good mechanical
properties, and corrosion resistance [4]. AlSi alloys nd wide
range of applications in marine castings, motor cars and lorry ttings/pistons and engine parts, cylinder blocks and heads, cylinder
liners, axles and wheels, rocker arms, automotive transmission casings, water-cooled manifolds and jackets, piston for the internal
combustion engines, pump parts, high speed rotating parts and
impellers [4,5].
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: shabestari@iust.ac.ir (S.G. Shabestari).
0261-3069/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2010.02.015

The in-service performance of the AlSi alloy castings primarily depends on their microstructures, chemical composition and
the amounts of impurities involved [68]. Iron is always present
in commercial Al alloys and has consistently emerged as the
main impurity element and perhaps the most detrimental to
the mechanical properties of these alloys. This is due mainly
to the precipitation of brittle b-Al5FeSi intermetallics that appear
as needles or plate-like morphologies in the microstructure [9
12].
Recently, Taghiabadi et al. [13] have shown that the addition of
0.7 wt.% Fe increased the hardness and improved the wear resistance of the alloy. Addition of iron up to 2.5 wt.% further increased
the hardness, but decreased the wear resistance of the alloy. In Al
Si piston alloys, iron is a desirable element that enhances the high
temperature properties and thermal stability of the alloy [14,15].
Attempts should be made to modify the negative effects of iron
intermetallics, therefore, by rening and modifying them to the
less deleterious morphologies.
Alloy chemistry is one of the most important factors that inuences the formation of the b-intermetallics. It is well known that
trace addition of suitable neutralizer elements like Mn, Cr, Be, Co,
and Sr can modify the b-phase morphology to the less harmful
forms [912]. Among these, Mn is an effective modier of needle-like intermetallic compounds [16,17]. It has been shown that
manganese addition up to the half of the amount of iron results
to the formation of some Chinese-script or star-like intermetallic
compounds in the matrix such as Al15(Fe,Mn)3Si2 [16], which have
less detrimental effects on the mechanical properties of the alloy
[17].

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V. Abouei et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 35183524


Table 1
Designations and chemical compositions of the alloys (wt.%).

Alloy code

Si

Cu

Ni

Mg

Zn

Fe

Mn

Al

Base
1.2Fe
1.2FeMn
1.2FeMn-CMa

12.64
12.82
12.94
12.85

1.01
0.96
1.08
0.98

1.10
0.99
1.09
1.01

0.98
0.95
0.91
0.93

0.018
0.016
0.016
0.016

0.41
1.12
1.19
1.15

0.62
0.66

Balance
Balance
Balance
Balance

The alloy prepared in a water-cooled copper mold are designated by CM.

This investigation has been focused on the modication of these


iron-rich intermetallics and to study their effects on the dry sliding
wear behavior of AlSi piston alloy.

2. Experimental procedure
Commercial ingots of the Al12Si alloy were used. The chemical
composition of them is given in Table 1. In order to investigate the

Fig. 1. Microstructures of the (a) base alloy, (b) 1.2Fe alloy, (c) 1.2FeMn alloy and (d) 1.2FeMn-CM alloy.
Table 2
Chemical composition of the phases shown in the micrographs of Fig. 1 (at.%).
Alloy code

Phases

Morphology

Base alloy

A
B
C
D
E

Needle-like
Stare-like
Stare-like

1.2Fe
1.2FeMn
1.2FeMn-CM

Atomic percentage
Al

Si

Fe

Mn

Cu

Ni

60.64
76.72
67.04
72.44
73.21

22.04

15.48
10.67
10.67

13.23
12.18
16.88
10.09
9.27

6.71
6.34

10.29

4.09
12.51

0.39

V. Abouei et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 35183524

Hardness
(HB)

Volume fraction of
phase (%)

Average maximum size


of phase (lm)

Base alloy
1.2Fe
1.2FeMn
1.2FeMn-CM

83 0.91
91 0.65
91.5 0.71
115 0.93

54.62 23.11
6.07 4.13
6.8 3.53
5.8 2.68

30.42 13.95
18.49 10.62

effect of Fe-rich intermetallics on the wear behavior of the alloy,


iron and manganese were added to the base alloy in order to obtain
1.2Fe alloy containing 1.2 wt.% Fe and 1.2FeMn alloy containing
1.2 wt.% Fe and 0.6 wt.% Mn (Table 1).
Iron and Manganese were added to the melt at 750 C using ALTAB Fe Compact (75 wt.% Fe, 15 wt.% Al and 10 wt.% nonhygroscopic Na-free ux) and Mn compact (75 wt.% Mn, 15 wt.% Al,
and 10 wt.% nonhygroscopic Na-free ux), respectively.
After addition of Fe and Mn, The temperature of the melt was
raised to 800 C, held for 15 min to homogenize the liquid and then

-3

-1

Alloy code

10

Table 3
Hardness, volume fraction, and the average maximum size of Fe-rich intermetallics
phases.

Wear Rate, mm . m . 10

3520

base
1.2Fe
1.2FeMn
1.2FeMn-CM

0
18

51

74

100

Load, N
Fig. 2. Variation of wear rate versus applied load for different alloys.

cooled in the furnace to 750 C. The melt was stirred and degassed
using Foseco 600 tablet for 10 min before pouring. Final pouring

Fig. 3. SEM micrographs of worn surfaces (a) base alloy at applied loads of 18 N, (b) 1.2FeMn alloy at applied loads of 18 N, and (c) 1.2FeMn-CM alloy at 100 N.

V. Abouei et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 35183524

temperature was always 720 5 C. The molten alloys were cast


into a cast iron mold which was preheated to 250 C having the
average cooling rate of 3 C s 1. To investigation the effect of
cooling rate on the structure and wear properties, the 1.2FeMn
alloys were also cast into a water-cooled copper mold to achieve
the average cooling rate of 15 C s 1.
Table 4
Chemical composition of the worn surfaces of the base alloy and 1.2FeMn alloy shown
in Fig. 3 (at.%).
Alloy code

Base alloy
1.2FeMn

Atomic percentage
O

Al

Si

Fe

Ni

Cu

41.93
34.48

48.19
43.28

3.57
5.70

5.03
16.21

3521

The hardness of all samples was measured using a Brinell hardness tester with the load of 31.25 kgf. The effect of alloy chemistry
on the microstructure was studied using a scanning electron
microscope equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS). The volume fraction of the iron-rich intermetallic was related to the area fraction which was measured by the quantitative
metallography using a computer-assisted Buhler Omnimet image
analysis system. Dry sliding was carried out at a relative humidity
of 40 2% at room temperature (25 C) against the counterface of a
hardened and polished steel disk with HRC 6265 hardness. The
pins, 5 mm  5 mm, were in a conformal contact with the disk.
The wear tests were conducted under nominal loads of 18, 51, 74
and 100 N, at a constant sliding speed of 0.3 ms 1 for a sliding distance of 1000 m. Each test was repeated three times at a given load
and sliding velocity.

Fig. 4. Longitudinal cross-section of the worn surface of 1.2FeMn alloy at an applied load of (a) 18 N, (b) 100 N, and (c) enlarged view of the marked region in the micrograph
(b).

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V. Abouei et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 35183524

3. Results and discussion


3.1. Microstructure and hardness
Fig. 1 shows the microstructural features of the LM13 piston alloys having different amounts of iron and manganese (Table 1). The
base alloy (Fig. 1a) contains some Fe-rich, Ni and Cu-rich intermetallics due to the presence of Fe, Cu and Ni in the composition of
alloy. Each intermetallic phase has been analyzed three times in
the sample and the average chemical composition of the intermetallics is given in Table 2.
The addition of iron to the LM13 piston alloy led to the precipitation of needle-like intermetallic phases in the matrix as shown
in Fig. 1b. The average atomic concentrations of Al, Fe and Si were

in good agreements with the concentrations obtained for the


b-Al5FeSi needles by others [1820]. Fig. 1c shows the micro structure of 1.2FeMn alloy. The addition of Mn up to the half of Fe
amount causes the replacement of b-needle-like intermetallic by
the star-like and polygonal morphologies. The average atomic percentage of the elements in these intermetallics indicates that they
are Al15(Fe,Mn)3Si2 phases (Table 2).
Fig. 1d shows the effect of cooling rate on the micro structures
of Fe, Mn containing LM13 alloy. As can be observed, high cooling
rate results to the rening of the alloy micro structure, particularly
the a-intermetallic phase.
Table 3 presents the hardness of the alloys. It is observed that
the hardness of the as-cast alloy shows an enhancement as
the iron content of the alloy increased. As can be noticed, higher

Fig. 5. Longitudinal cross-section of the worn surfaces at the applied load of 100 N, showing mechanical mixed layer, (a) base alloy and (b) 1.2FeMn alloy.

Fig. 6. (a) SEM micrographs of wear debris of base alloy at applied loads of 18 N, and (b) enlarged view of the marked region A in the micrograph (a).

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cooling rates results to an increment in the hardness of 1.2FeMnCM alloy.


The image analysis results of the volume fraction and the average of the maximum size of the intermetallics are presented in Table 3.
Comparing the alloy 1.2FeMn-CM with the alloy 1.2FeMn, it
indicates that the size and the volume fraction of iron-rich intermetallics were decreased about 39% and 14% respectively, by
increasing cooling rate.

3.2. Wear characterizations


The wear rate of the base alloy, 1.2Fe, 1.2FeMn and 1.2FeMnCM alloys at different applied loads of 18, 51, 74 and 100 N are
compared with each other in Fig. 2. It can be observed that the
addition of about 1.2%Fe to the base alloy creates a detrimental effect on the wear behavior of the alloy. Also, the 1.2Fe alloy has the
highest wear rate compared to the base alloy at all applied loads.
Based on Fig 2, the addition of Mn to the 1.2Fe alloy declines the
detrimental effects of iron and improves the wear rate of 1.2FeMn
alloy compared to that of 1.2Fe alloy. Applying high cooling rate to
the 1.2FeMn alloy leads to the reduction in the wear rate. Thus, the
1.2FeMn-CM alloy displays the highest wear resistance among the
alloys.
The SEM micrographs of the worn surfaces of the alloys under
applied loads of 18 and 100 N are shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 3a shows
that the worn surface was mostly covered by oxide particles under
applied load of 18 N. The oxide particles formed on the overall
worn surface of the pin contained a certain amount of iron, aluminium and oxygen as examined by EDS (Table 4). These debris could
entrapped between the sliding surfaces and gets compacted due to
the repetitive sliding and forms a tribolayer over the surface, as
shown in Fig 3b and d. The composition of the tribolayer formed
on the overall worn surface of the pin has been presented in Table
4. Fig. 4 shows the subsurface micrographs of 1.2FeMn alloy subjected to an applied load of 100 N. Sliding high tangential stresses
that occur on and below the sliding surface, result in nucleation of
cracks within the plastically deformed material beneath the surface as shown in Fig 4a. The cracks can be propagated and their
connection to each other can lead to fracture of metallic and inter-

metallic particles from the surface [21,22]. These fragmented


metallic particles could be mechanically mixed with the oxides
in the contact zone and form a tribolayer (MML) as shown in Fig
5a and b. The tensions derived on the surface during sliding, can
weaken the tribolayer and lead to the delamination and fracture
of oxide lm generated through the wear debris (Figs. 6 and 7).
According to Table 5, the composition of the wear debris contained
a certain amount of iron, aluminium and oxygen that is similar to
what can be observed from the worn surfaces in Fig. 3.
Decrease in the wear properties of 1.2Fe alloy compared to the
base alloy, as shown in Fig. 2, can be explained based on the microstructural features of the alloys. Fig. 1b shows that addition of iron
to the LM13 alloy led to the precipitation b-phase intermetallic in
the matrix. b-Al5FeSi needle-like intermetallics are hard and brittle
phases. They exist as discrete particles with a highly faceted nature
in the alloy matrix [23]. Accordingly, it has relatively low bond
strength with the matrix and the interfacial regions between this
phase and the matrix become quite prone to microcracking
[9,24,17]. Moreover, sharp edges of the b-needles introduce severe
stress concentration effect into the alloys matrix [10].
According to Fig. 2, the enhancement in the wear properties of
1.2FeMn alloy compared to 1.2Fe can be originated from the
replacement of b-ake-like intermetallics by the modied a-intermetallic compounds.
Since the a-intermetallics have a modied morphology rather
than the b phase, they have little effect on the formation of surface
and subsurface microcracks. Also, the a-intermetallics form a
rough interface with the matrix and their better bonding with
the matrix declines the possibility of crack formation in the interface of the intermetallic compounds with the matrix.
As observed in Fig. 1d, increasing the cooling rate led to the
renement of microstructural features mainly the eutectic silicon
Table 5
Chemical composition of the wear debris of the base alloy and 1.2FeMn-CM alloy
shown in Figs. 6 and 7 (at.%).
Alloy code

Atomic percentage
O

Al

Si

Fe

Ni

Cu

Base alloy (region A)


1.2FeMn (region B)

48.52
36.91

39.50
43.00

4.37
6.47

5.59
5.41

Fig. 7. (a) SEM micrographs of wear debris of 1.2FeMn-CM alloy at applied loads of 51 N, and (b) enlarged view of the marked region B in the micrograph (a).

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V. Abouei et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 35183524

particles and the Fe-rich intermetallics. The high cooling rate


decreases the a-phase formation temperature and restricts its
growth time [25,26]. Increasing the cooling rate also decreases
the size of the secondary dendrite arm spacing and, therefore,
the a-phases that form in the interdendritic spaces become ner
[27,28]. Table 3 conrms that the size and the volume fraction of
Fe-rich compounds in 1.2FeMn-CM alloy compared to 1.2FeMn alloy, were decreased by about 39% and 14%, respectively.
Solidication at high cooling rate also increased the hardness of
the alloys about 20%. This increase in hardness resulted in a higher
wear resistance than expected by Archard wear law [29]. In addition to solid solution strengthening effect of the high cooling rate
solidication, the superior wear behavior observed in 1.2FeMnCM alloy (Fig. 2), can be attributed to the ne distribution of the
hard a-intermetallics and eutectic silicon particles in the matrix
that decreased the susceptibility of the alloy to embrittlement
and microcracking.
4. Conclusion
(1) The addition of iron to AlSi alloys resulted in the formation
of needle-like iron-rich intermetallics in the matrix.
(2) Flake-like intermetallics due to the higher tendency to
microcracking lead to the reduction of the wear resistance
of the alloy.
(3) The Mn addition to the alloy results to the reduction of the
detrimental effect of iron due to the formation of the modied a-intermetallic phases.
(4) Solidication at high cooling rate results to the renement of
the intermetallic particles and causes the improvement of
the alloy wear resistance.
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