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Casting technology of thin-wall TiAl alloy turbochargers was studied by investment casting and numerical simulation. Misruns and gas holes were the main defects observed in preliminary work due to the poor fluidity of alloy, and to gas entrapment. In order to eliminate these defects, cast parameters, such as centrifugal rotation rate and mould preheating temperature, were optimized by numerical simulation, meanwhile, the structure of the shell mould was optimized to improve the filling capacity of TiAl alloy. Pouring experiments were carried out by vacuum induction melting furnace equipped with a water-cooled copper crucible based on the above optimization. The quality of the TiAl alloy casting was analyzed by fluorescent penetrant inspection and X-ray detection. The results show that a centrifugal rotation rate of 200 rpm, mould preheating temperature of 600 °C, shell preparation through organic fiber addition can dramatically improve the mould filling capacity, and integrated turbochargers were finally prepared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new technology for detecting a tiny residual core in the small inner cavity of complex castings is proposed. The residual core is identified by using image recognition technology. Tracer processing and image signal processing are combined to enhance the image contrast. The relationships between the concentration of tracer, the size of the residual core, the wall thickness of the castings and the contrast were obtained. Based on the experimental data, the minimum detectable amount of residual core under different conditions was obtained. The results show that the minimum detectable amount decreases from 4.398 mg to 0.438 mg for the 1.0 mm wall thickness casting when the concentration of tracer increases from 0% to 20%. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the detection results increases by 27.010 by means of average filtering and linear point operation. The subtraction of image and image background was performed, and then the boundary extraction was carried out to obtain a clear and reliable result. The experimental results show that the non-traced residual core cannot be detected for a blade with a thickness less than 5 mm. The residual core of 1 mm thickness can be barely identified by artificial recognition after tracer processing and image processing, while the residual core of 0.6 mm thickness can be detected clearly using image recognition technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of Sr addition on pore formation in directionally solidified Al-12.3wt.% alloy was investigated using X-ray detection, optical microscope, and SEM-EDX. Results indicate that addition of Sr significantly increases the number density and volume fraction of porosity. The considerable rise in volume fraction of porosity is attributed to the remarkable increase in the numbers of pores formed. It is found that Sr solute in liquid Al-Si alloy can diffuse into the oxide inclusions to form loose oxide aggregations which have more activity as the nucleation sites for porosity. Adding more Sr considerably increases the numbers of active nucleation sites. There is an obvious fluctuation of pore number density during steady state solidification, which is believed to be related to a fluctuation of local hydrogen supersaturation induced by the competition of pore nucleation and growth for hydrogen solute supplement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]