Structure of liquid aluminum-silicon alloys

The Kumarin-Samarin technique of centrifuging was adopted to study the structure of aluminium-silicon alloys in terms of the concept of the existence of clusters in liquid state. The investigation shows that in hypo-eute-ctic alloys the clusters are denser than the monatomic matrix whilst in hyper-eutectic alloys they are lighter. It is suggested that this difference in the distribution of silicon in liquid state could account for the differ-ence in the solidification behaviour of hypo and hyper-eutectic alloys.