Flow Control During Solidification of AlSi-Alloys by Means of Tailored AC Magnetic Fields

This paper presents an experimental study which in a first stage is focused on obtaining quantitative information about the isothermal flow field exposed to various magnetic field configurations.Melt stirring has been realized by utilizing time-modulated AC magnetic fields in different variants.We consider time-modulated fields or combinations of traveling magnetic fields(TMF)and rotating magnetic fields(RMF).In a second step solidification experiments are carried out to verify the effect of a certain flow field on the solidification process.Our results demonstrate that the melt agitation using modulated magnetic fields offers a considerable potential for a well-aimed modification of casting properties by an effective control of the flow field.