Abstract:
Alloy A356 is one of the most popular alloys used for semisolid metal forming. The heat treatment cycles that are currently applied
to semisolid processed components are mostly those that are in use for dendritic casting alloys. The assumption has been made that
these heat treatments are not necessarily the optimum treatments, as the difference in solidification history and microstructure of
SSM processed components should be considered. The objective of this study is to determine whether dendritic A356 behaves in
a similar way to globular A356 in terms of its response to artificial aging with or without prior natural aging. The results indicate
that the differences in microstructures (globular or dendritic) do not have a noteworthy effect on the heat treatment response. It
is also shown that strong linear correlations are found between T4 and T6 hardness and wt% Mg of A356, regardless of the casting
technique used.
