Characteristic of Cast Zn-Al-Cu Alloy Microstructure after Modification

Cast zinc alloys have similar properties to aluminium alloys. The differences are due to the lower melting point and higher density. Zinc has a density of 7.14 g/cm3, a melting point of 419.5°C and the boiling temperature of 906º C. In the temperature range from 150 to 200°C, zinc has good susceptibility to plastic deformation. It is also resistant to atmospheric factor influence, but is not resistant to acids. The main use of zinc alloy, is the production of thin-walled casts that require high precision. Zinc alloys are also used for die casting moulds, housings and covers as well as a variety of devices that are used in the precision industry, electrical engineering, automotive and construction industry. Properly performed chemical modification leads to improve of properties of the produced castings. Therefore it is very important to know how the cast structure with the change of the chemical composition by adding metallic modifiers to the liquid metal. In this work there was studied the effect of chemical modification of cast zinc alloy on the properties and microstructure of the alloys before and after modification. Modified alloys were prepared by adding modifiers in the range of 0.1% to 1% in form of Ti- Sr and B as aluminium master alloy and then cast into the metal moulds. Next the thermo-derivative analysis was performed of the modified Zn-Al-Cu alloy, the microstructure investigation was carried out using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy with EDS X-ray microanalysis usage as well as hardness was measured of the modified Zn-Al-C alloys