Ch02-I045370.

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Structure and Microstructure of Aluminum Alloys in As-cast State 171
mixed cell/subgrain microstructure. Typically, several dislocation cells will be
located inside each dendritic cell. At higher solidication rates, in particular,
in welded joints where cooling rate may attain 1000 K/s, the sizes of dendritic
and dislocation cells coincide. Similarly to rapidly solidied thin lms [163165],
dislocation forests will be observed only on the periphery of dendritic cells,
along their boundaries.
If cooling rate for binary alloys is reduced to 0.65 K/s, the distributions
of dislocations become more uniform, and cell dislocation microstructure less
pronounced. In slowly cooled (V
c
=0.2 K/s) industrial castings made of copper-
bearing aluminum alloy 203.0 with 0.2%Cd dislocations do not form cells at all,
while dislocation density attains a value of 0.3 10
9
cm
2
. This is half order
of magnitude less than in binary alloys at cooling rates >0.7 K/s. In industrial
castings made of alloy 203.0 with 0.2%Cd the total dislocation density turned out
to be signicantly lower even at relatively high solidication rates: (0.5 0.1)10
9
at V
c
=0.7 K/s and (0.7 0.2)10
9
cm
2
at V
c
=7.5 K/s. Additionally, systematic
growth of was observed as solidication rate increased.
Although in AlCu casting alloys dislocations mostly form bundles (forest),
in certain conditions one may expect the formation of planar dislocation bound-
aries. This depends upon the concentration of copper in alloys and also on the
applied cooling rate. In AlCu alloy containing 0.5%Cu subgrain boundaries are
not formed at any solidication rates. On the other hand, in an alloy containing
4%Cu, planar dislocation boundaries are observed at rates <400

C/min, mostly
on the periphery of dendritic cells. Finally, in an alloy containing 5%Cu subgrain
boundaries will be observed in welded joints (V
c
=10
3
K/s).
2.8.3 The mechanisms of formation of dislocation microstructures in
cast aluminum alloys
In order to discuss the empirical rules of formation of dislocation microstructures
and the role of solidication conditions it is important to answer the fundamental
question:Which mechanism(s) are responsible for the formation of these disloca-
tions? This question becomes even more important if we take into account that
their density in as-cast alloys is quite high (10
9
cm
2
) and comparable to the
density of dislocations in metal work hardened at elevated temperatures [166].
Possible mechanisms of dislocation nucleation upon molten metal solidica-
tion were analyzed in many works (see, e.g., [130, 167169]). In our opinion, the
following mechanisms of dislocation formation are operable for as-cast aluminum
alloys:
1. Stress concentrations arising because of microsegregation processes of alloying
elements.
2. Thermal and shrinkage stresses.
3. Collapse of dislocation disks.
4. Stresses at the interface between constituent particles and Al-based solid
solution.