The microstructure of AI-Ni alloy has a significant influence on its performance, while electromagnetic stirring is one of the most effective methods for control of solidification structure of AI alloy. To investigate the effect of electromagnetic stirring on the solidification of the ingot, the solidification of the Al-50Ni alloy in vacuum with electromagnetic stirring was described by numerical simulation in this paper; and a three dimensional mathematical model was established. The electromagnetic field was simulated by ANSYS software and the thermal-flow field was simulated by FLUENT software. The coupling between the electromagnetic field and the thermal-flow field was implemented by user-defined subroutines. It is found that the current intensity has significant influences on the fluid flow and the microstructure of the alloy. The simulation results agree well with the experimental results, and the optimum current intensity under the exprimental conditions is 80 A, while the frequency is 50 Hz.
The combined effects of direct current pulsed magnetic field （DC-PMF） and inoculation on pure aluminum were investigated, the grain refinement behavior of DC-PMF and inoculation was discussed. The experimental results indicate that the solidification micro structure of pure aluminum can be greatly refined under DC-PMF. Refinement of pure aluminum is attributed to electromagnetic undercooling and forced convection caused by DC-PMF. With single DC-PMF, the grain size in the equiaxed zone is uneven. However, under DC-PMF, by adding 0.05% （mass fraction） Al5Ti-B, the grain size of the sample is smaller, and the size distribution is more uniform than that of single DC-PMF. Furthermore, under the combination of DC-PMF and inoculation, with the increase of output current, the grain size is further reduced. When the output current increases to 100 A, the average grain size can decrease to 113 μn.
At the late stage of solidification with ultrasonic treatment （UST） in Al-Si alloys, a part of semisolid overflows and climbs along the probe. The interesting phenomenon and its influence on the solidification microstructure were investigated in order to better study the mechanism of UST. It is considered that the overflowing phenomenon occurs due to the changes of vibration and flow in the remaining semisolid. Because the overflowed portion comes from the region with intense UST effect and vibrates with the probe during solidification, great modification of primary and euteetic Si （about 10 pm in length） and refinement of primary a（Al） （about 70 μm in size） are observed in this portion.
