Depencency of Structure, Mechanical and Electrical Properties on Rotating Magnetic Field in the Bi-Sn-Ag Ternary Eutectic Alloy

A profound understanding of the solidification behavior under the impact of an intense melt flow is important to controll the microstructure and macrostructure of alloys in industry. In the present study, cylindrical samples of a Bi-Sn-Ag ternary eutectic alloy were exposed to a rotating magnetic field (RMF) during directional solidification. The morphology was transformed from a coarser plate-like structure to a fine fibrous eutectic structure with increasing field strength. The dependence of the eutectic spacing, microhardness (HV), ultimate tensile stress, electrical resistivity of the Bi-Sn-Ag eutectic alloy on the RMF-driven flowwas investigated in this study. Reference measurements of electrical resistivity for cast samples without RMF in the temperature range of 20-200 oC were also measured by the four-point probe technique. The enthalpy of fusion and specific heat (Cp) for the same alloy was determined by means of differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) from the heating trace during the transformation from the eutectic liquid to eutectic solid. The results obtained in the present work were compared with published data available in the literature.