Influence of process parameters in ultrasonic treatment of AlSi alloys

Nowadays ultrasound is one of the most relevant treatment in the metallurgy field able to improve microstructure and mechanical properties of aluminium alloys. This simple technique, in fact, allows the achievement of different advantages like degassing, grain refinement, non-dendritic (globular) microstructure, filtration and solubilisation via a single treatment step. On the other hand, it is influenced from the process parameters used. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the influence the microstructure of process parameters such as the amount of treated alloy, the melt temperature and the used frequency. FEM analysis was used to evaluate the ultrasound treatment effectiveness; a comparative analysis between finite element simulations and experimental results was performed on AlSi alloys. It was found that, even working in a not optimized configuration, the treatment guarantees a limited but positive effect.