22. Formation of Internal Crack in High-Speed Twin-Roll Cast 6022 Al... http://www.lm-foundation.or.jp/english/abstract-vol44/abstract/22.

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Formation of Internal Crack in High-Speed Twin-Roll

Cast 6022 Aluminum Alloy Strip
Min-Seok Kim, Yoshiyuki Arai, Yasuharu Hori and Shinji Kumai
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology

Recently, vertical-type high-speed twin-roll casting (HSTRC) has been developed for producing thin
aluminum plate with predominantly increased casting speed. Figure 1 shows a schematic illustration
of the present caster. Al-Mg-Si based 6022 aluminum alloys, which represents a wide freezing
temperature range, and pure aluminums were cast to compare a solidification behavior in terms of
solidification type, i.e. the existence of solid/liquid co-existence layer (mushy layer) at the
growth-front of solidifying shell on the roll surface or not. Under a roll rotation speed of 60 m/min
and an initial roll separating force of 14.1 kN, a large-scale crack appeared in the mid-central region
of the 6022 alloy strip.

Macrostructure of pure aluminum strip showed columnar grains in the near-surface region and
equiaxed grains in the mid-central region (Fig. 2 (a)). On the other hand, the 6022 alloy strips
exhibited equiaxed grains in the near-surface region and a band of fine globular grains in the
mid-central region (Fig. 2 (b)). The large crack was observed mostly at a boundary between the
globular grain band and dendritic solidified shell in the 6022 alloy strip. It was considered that
decrease of cooling rate near the minimum roll gap caused the cracking due to residual liquid.

In order to find the condition for defect-free strip casting, HSTRC was carried out under various
casting conditions (Fig. 3). The large-scale central cracking was prevented when a sufficient roll
separating force was applied by increasing a solidification time, or increasing an initial roll separating
force.

From a direct temperature measurement during the HSTRC using a sensitive thermocouple, it was
confirmed that 6022 alloy showed low cooling rates compared with that of pure aluminum, and the
cooling rates increased with increasing the roll separating force (Fig. 4).

In conclusion, the formation of mushy layer at the growth-front of solidifying shell on the roll surface
is closely related to the occurrence of the internal defects in 6022 alloy during HSTRC. A thick
mushy layer of 6022 alloy induced by wide freezing temperature range lowers cooling rates near the
minimum roll gap. As a consequence, the large-scale cracking occurs at mid-central region of the cast
strip due to residual liquid. Applying sufficient roll separating force is effective to increase cooing
rates near the minimum roll gap and to produce a sound strip with no crack in the central region.

[Published in Materials Transactions, Vol. 51, No. 10, (2010), pp. 1854 - 1860.]

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Fig.1. Schematic illustrations of the vertical-type

high-speed twin-roll caster

Fig.2. Grain structure of the transverse cross

section of the cast strip. (a) pure aluminum, (b)
6022 alloy

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Fig.3. Relationship between strip thickness and casting condition of (a) initial roll separating force,
(b) initial roll gap, (c) roll rotation speed, and (d) solidification length.

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Fig.4. Changes in temperature and cooling rates at the central band region of strips during HSTRC
under various roll separating force. (a) 6022 alloy, (b) pure aluminum

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