Socorro Valdez

By Socorro Valdez Rodríguez, Lorenzo Martínez and Martín Pech- Canul

Physical properties on solidification process deal with the internal atomic arrangement, named generally microstructure. The microstructure characteristic is essential for the properties of metallic materials, including binary, ternary or eutectic alloys. Thus, despite significant progress on microstructural evolution, numerous challenges still exist for revealing the internal structure to act synergistically with matrix alloy chemical components. It is well known that the internal microstructure of an alloy controls and modifies the nature, interaction type and properties of the existing defects and final applications. At this point, necessary understanding of the correlation between equilibrium and non-equilibrium effects, surface energy and chemical potential for the time of the structures formation is probably the key to solidification that can help to predict the complex of microstructures. For the case of multi-phase solidification, AlMgSi alloy involves thousands of atoms, at the atomic scale, that transit to microstructures while the solid-liquid phase transformation occurs. This chapter outlines the role of solidification physics, and the atomic arrangement is believed to have in influencing mechanical hardness properties and degradation resistance.

Part of the book: Solidification