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Zamak 5 vs ZA8 - need help understanding phase transformation

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necktwist

Automotive
Dec 8, 2010
18
I am changing over from Zamak 5 to ZA8 for additional creep performance and to mitigate some issues with hot tears due to a large steel core.

One question i can't answer is where is the extra aluminum going? Zamak5 and ZA8 are essentially the same alloy except ZA8 has 8% Al vs. only 4% for Zamak 5.

From the zinc handbook, it looks like only 1% of the aluminum can make it into the solid solution of zinc, and the remaining 7% goes somewhere else.

Also, i age these parts for a bit and am trying to figure out exactly what happens during the age process. i now that something precipitaes out of the solid solution but stays in that area, but what happens to the eutectic all around it?

In what Form is most of the Aluminum and how do Zamak 5 and ZA8 contrast in this respect?

ZA8 has proven in experiments i have run to be far superior against cracking.


Thanks very much.
 
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