Electromagnetic levitation and solidification of ferrosilicon alloy and resulting microstructural evolution mechanisms

In this study, to improve pulverization of Fe–Si alloy, the evolution of its microstructure under container and containerless solidification conditions were investigated using electromagnetic levitation melting technology. The results indicated that the microstructure changed from dendritic crystals during container solidification to equiaxed crystals with containerless solidification. With an undercooling of 280 K obtained by containerless solidification, the pulverizing sensitive elements (Al, P) disperse better in F e S i 2 phase. The equiaxed Si grains with relatively uniform grain size obtained under Δ T = 280 K are distributed in random orientation. High angle grain boundaries are significantly more present with the increase of misorientation within F e S i 2 grains. This texture is closely related to recrystallization in favor of grain refinement, which is attributed to the melt oscillation and dendrites remelting-recrystallization effects occurring in containerless solidification.