Effects on the evolution of microstructure and properties of low-silicon cast aluminum alloys in service

The microstructure evolution and property change of four kinds of low silicon cast aluminum alloy exposed to heat for 0–50 h at 200°C were studied by means of Brinell hardness test, tensile property test, friction and wear property test and XRD analysis. The results show that with increasing thermal exposure time, the tensile strength of each group of samples decreased and the amount of wear increased. The tensile strength of samples with more Si content decreased slowly. When the time increased to 50 h, the increase of wear loss was the largest. The hardness of samples after thermal exposure increases compared with that before thermal exposure. The residual stress of (311) diffraction crystal surface of AlSi3.5Mg0.66 under different thermal exposure time was measured. The type of residual stress changed from residual tensile stress to residual compressive stress after thermal exposure. There is an abnormal phenomenon that the hardness of the sample increased and the amount of wear increased, and it is evident that the distribution of residual stress was inhomogeneous after thermal exposure. It is found that with increasing thermal exposure time to 50 h, the average lattice distortion ε of the low-index crystal plane and the high-index crystal plane in the aluminum alloys gradually increased.