Thermochimica Acta, Vol.577, 5-10, 2014
The determination of the activation energy varying with the precipitated fraction of beta'' metastable phase in an Al-Si-Mg alloy using non-isothermal dilatometry
The kinetic study of the beta '' phase precipitation in Al-Si-Mg alloy was carried out through nonisothermal dilatometry. Using Kissinger method, the apparent activation energy was first estimated to be 67 kJ/mol. In order to investigate the variation of the apparent activation energy (Q(alpha)) as a function of the formed fraction (alpha) of beta '' phase, differential isoconversional method of Friedman (FR) and integral isoconversional methods of Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) were used. The methods showed an increase in Q(alpha) with alpha. However the dependence of Q(alpha) is more pronounced for FR method whose Q(alpha) values are higher. Q(alpha) values were in the range 77-110kJ/mol and 67-79 kJ/mol for FR and KAS methods, respectively. Some disagreement between these results and those obtained in a previous work using DSC experiments are observed, particularly for FR analysis. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.