Semisolid metal processing

Semisolid metal (SSM) processingis a relatively new technology for metal forming. Different from the conventional metal forming technologies which use either solid metals (solid state processing) or liquid metals (casting) as starting materials, SSM processing deals with semisolid slurries, in which non-dendritic solid particles are dispersed in a liquid matrix. Semisolid metal slurries exhibit distinctive rheological characteristics: the steady state behaviour is pseudoplastic (or shear thinning), while the transient state behaviour is thixotropic. All the currently available technologies for SSM processing have been developed based on those unique rheological properties, which in turn originate from their…