Achieving grain refinement of α-Al and Si modification simultaneously by La‒B‒Sr addition in Al‒10Si alloys

As-cast Al‒Si alloys always face low ductility because of coarse α-Al grains and large lamellar eutectic Si. Although B-containing refiners and Sr modifiers could refine the α-Al grains and eutectic Si respectively, simultaneous addition leads to an invalid effect of Sr because B-containing refiner has a poisoning effect (PE) on Sr modifier in the Al‒10Si‒B‒Sr alloys. The present work achieves both refinement of α-Al grains and modification of Si merely by the addition of 500 ppm La in Al‒10Si‒0.02B‒0.015Sr alloy, which greatly enhances the ductility and tensile strength. Sr‒B interaction in the Al‒10Si‒0.02B‒0.015Sr melt results in a consumption of Sr by forming Sr‒B intermetallic compound. CALPHAD-type calculations reveal that Sr concentration in liquid before eutectic reaction becomes a key parameter to estimate the alloying modification effect. The addition of La forms LaB6 and thereby releases Sr to protect the Sr modification effect. First-principles calculations illustrate that both Sr and La are beneficial to the formation of twin boundaries in Si particles due to their negative formation energy of twin boundaries. The formed LaB6 has a semicoherent interface with α-Al with the orientation relationship of [11¯0]LaB6//[11¯0]Al and (11¯1)LaB6//(11¯1)Al, demonstrating that LaB6 is an efficient nucleation site for α-Al, which contributes to the refinement of α-Al in the Al‒10Si‒0.05La‒0.02B‒0.015Sr alloy. Our findings reveal the micro-mechanism of refinement during the solidification process and develop an effective and simple way to obtain high-performance Al alloys.