STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF TiB2 PARTICLES ON THE STRUCTURE, DEFORMATION BEHAVIOR, AND PROPERTIES OF THE ALUMINUM ALLOY 1550

In this work, the special master alloys containing aluminum and TiB2 powder with bimodal particle size distribution in three mixture compositions are prepared. The master alloys are infused into the melts using an external ultrasound source. The castings with particles had smaller grain sizes than the initial castings without particles. It is found that the hardness, yield strength, and ultimate tensile strength reach higher values with an increase in the relative elongation of the cast alloys with added particles. A warm rolling mode is employed for the studied alloys to obtain sheet blanks. It is shown that the staged shrinkage of the billets up to deformation of 80 % with periodic heating up to 300 °C allows one to obtain defect-free sheet products. The structure of the rolled sheet-alloys is characterized by the plate-shaped grains elongated along the rolling direction with pockets of submicron-sized grains in between. The strength properties of the studied rolled alloys exceeded those of the cast alloys. In the case of the rolled alloys, an increase in the yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, and ductility is revealed for the alloys with particles as compared to the ones with no particles added.