Method and apparatus for processing a liquid alloy
OwnerQingyou Haninventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for producing solid alloy components from its liquid state are provided. The molten alloy is rapidly cooled using a chill to temperatures below the thermosolutal transition temperature of the alloy. Finite-amplitude acoustic vibration is applied on the chill to shake off dendrites that form on the chill surface, to stir the slurry containing the fragments of dendrites, and to shake off slurry material that sticks on the surface of the chill as the chill is separating from the slurry. The slurry is then immediately poured into a chamber of a forming machine or a mold cavity shaped into solid components.
Claims8
A method of producing a metallic component from its liquid alloy, comprising:
- preparing a liquid alloy that is free from its primary solid phase material and transferring a predetermined quantity of liquid alloy to a holding vessel or a trough;
- preparing a vibration coupled block chill having a bottom surface with a shape and size complementary to that of the liquid alloy;
- contacting a top surface of the liquid alloy with the vibration coupled chill to form solid crystals on chill-liquid interfaces, and to rapidly cool bulk of the liquid alloy to below its thermosolutal transition temperature;
- maintaining the bottom surface of the chill in a substantial contact with the top surface of the liquid alloy;
- vibrating the chill to shake off the solid crystals formed on the chill-liquid interfaces, to drive them to the bulk of the liquid alloy, and to cause forced convection to mix the solid crystals with the bulk of the liquid alloy to form a slurry containing a small fraction of non-dendritic solid crystals while the top surface of the liquid alloy remains quiescent;
- separating the chill from the slurry after the solid content in the slurry has risen to about 1% to 20% while vibrating the chill to shake off the slurry that may stick to surfaces of the chill;
- and
- pouring the slurry containing the small fraction of non-dendritic solid crystals into a component forming apparatus and shaping the slurry into a desired solid component.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.