In this study, the effects of powder size and composition on the reflectance of Al-Si based alloys are presented. First, the reflectance of Al-Si bulk and powder are analyzed to confirm the effect of powder size. Results show that the bulk has a higher reflectance than that of powder because the bulk has lower surface defects. In addition, the larger the particle size, the higher is the reflectance because the interparticle space decreases. Second, the effect of composition on the reflectance by the changing composition of Al-Si-Mg is confirmed. Consequently, the reflectance of the alloy decreases with the addition of Si and Mg because dendrite Si and Mg2Si are formed, and these have lower reflectance than pure Al. Finally, the reflectance of the alloy is due to the scattering of free electrons, which is closely related to electrical conductivity. Measurements of the electrical conductivity based on the composition of the Al-Si-Mg alloy confirm the same tendency as the reflectance.

In order to improve the weak mechanical properties of cast Mg alloys, Mg- (at%) alloy powders were synthesized using gas atomization, a typical rapid solidification process. The powders consist of fine dendrite structures less than 3 in arm spacing. In order to fabricate a bulk form, the Mg powders were compacted using magnetic pulse compaction (MPC) under various processing parameters of pressure and temperature. The effects of the processing parameters on the microstructure and mechanical properties were systematically investigated.

In this paper, rapid solidified Mg-4.3Zn-0.7Y (at.%) alloy powders were prepared using an inert gas atomizer, followed by a severe plastic deformation technique of high pressure torsion (HPT) for consolidation of the powders. The gas atomized powders were almost spherical in shape, and grain size was as fine as less than due to rapid solidification. Plastic deformation responses during HPT were simulated using the finite element method, which shows in good agreement with the analytical solutions of a strain expression in torsion. Varying the HPT processing temperature from ambient to 473 K, the behavior of powder consolidation, matrix microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of the compacts was investigated. The gas atomized powders were deformed plastically as well as fully densified, resulting in effective grain size refinements and enhanced microhardness values.

Numerical simulations of the powder extrusion need an appropriate pressure-dependent constitutive model for densification modeling of the magnesium powders. The present research investigated the effect of representative powder yield function of the critical relative density model. We could obtain reasonable physical properties of pure magnesium powders using cold isostatic pressing. The proposed densification model was implemented into the finite element code. The finite element analysis was applied to simulation of powder extrusion of pure magnesium powder in order to investigate the densification and processing load at room temperature.

This work is to report not only the effect of rapid solidification of alloys on the micro-structure, but also the extrusion behavior on the materials properties. The average grain size of the atomized powders was about . The alloy powders of , consisted of I-Phase (Icosahedral, ) as well as Cubic structured W-Phase (), which was finely distributed within matrix. The oxide layer formed along the Mg surface was about 48 nm in thickness. In order to study the consolidation behavior of Mg alloy powders, extrusion was carried out with the area reduction ratio of 10:1 to 20:1. As the ratio increased, fully deformed and homogeneous microstructure could be obtained, and the mechanical properties such as tensile strength and elongation were simultaneously increased.

Mg-4.3Zn-0.7Y (at%) alloy powders were prepared using an industrial scale gas atomizer, followed by warm extrusion. The powders were almost spherical in shape. The microstructure of atomized powders and those extruded bars was examined using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscope (EDS) and X-ray Diffractometer (XRD). The grain size of the powders was coarsen as the initial powder size increased. After the extrusion, the grain size became fine due to the severe plastic deformation during the extrusion with the ratio of 10:1. Both the ultimate strength and elongation were enhanced with the decrease of initial particle size.