Monika Žaludová

Experimental verification of hematite ingot mould heat capacity and its direct utilisation in simulation of casting process

Heat capacity of alloys (metals) is one of the crucial thermophysical parameters used for process behaviour prediction in many applications. Heat capacity is an input variable for many thermodynamical (e.g. Thermocalc, Pandat, MTData, …) and kinetic programs (e.g. IDS-Solidification analysis package, …). The dependences of heat capacity on common variables (temperature, pressure, ...) are also commonly used as the input data in software packages (e.g. ProCast, Magmasoft, ANSYS Fluent, …) that are applicable in the field of applied research for simulations of technological processes. It follows from the above that the heat capacities of materials, alloys in our case, play a very important role in the field of basic and applied research. Generally speaking, experimental data can be found in the literature, but corresponding (needed) data for the given alloy can very seldom be found or can differ from the tabulated ones. The knowledge of proper values of heat capacities of alloys at the corresponding temperature can be substantially used for addition to and thus towards the precision of the existing database and simulation software. This study presents the values of Cp measured for the hematite ingot mould and comparison of the measured data with the Cp values obtained using the software CompuTherm with respect to simulation of technological casting process.

Thermal Analysis Results and the Theoretical Determination of Solidus and Liquidus Temperatures for the Grain Oriented Electrical Steel

This paper is devoted to the comparison of theoretically defined solidus and liquidus temperatures based on above mentioned theoretical methods with the results of high-temperature thermal analysis carried out on two devices (Netzsch STA 449 F3 Jupiter; Setaram SETSYS 18TM). On large samples (23 g), the method of direct thermal analysis was applied. On small samples (200 mg), the experiments using differential thermal analysis were realized. It was found out that the solidus and liquidus temperatures for the studied steel grade can vary in dependence on the used determination method. The used methodology of thermal analysis is fully reproducible, and the these thermo-analytical results can be considered as necessary for the correct setting of critical parameters in applied research on the process of steel casting.

Effect of Heat Treatment on Formation of Al-Al3Ni Hypereutectic Alloys

The paper deals with the mechanism of eutectic formation in a nickel coated aluminium system after heat treatment. The initial coating was produced from a nickel powder by means of high velocity oxyfuel (HVOF) spraying onto an aluminium sheet substrate. Specimens for investigations were manufactured immediately after the spraying. The specimens were heat-treated using a differential thermal analysis (DTA) apparatus up to the temperature of 700 or 900 °C and then cooled down to room temperature in argon atmosphere with a constant heating and cooling rate of 5 °C / min, under which Al-Al3Ni + Al3Ni hypereutectic alloys were formed within the initial substrate. Two different alloy microstructures consisting of intermetallic layers and coarse eutectic or an ultrafine well-dispersed eutectic were formed. Formation processes and resulting microstructures were studied by means of DTA, metallography, scanning electron microscopy, focused ion beam, energy dispersive microanalysis and image analysis techniques.