The development of lead-free solder has been an urgent and hard task for material due to health and environmental concerns over the lead content of conventional solders. The aim of the present work is to investigate the influence of microstructural dendritic array parameters of a Sn-4wt% and 12 wt% Zn lead-free solder alloys on its mechanical properties. A water-cooled (25 °C ±2°C) unidirectional solidification system was used in the experiments. The solidification set-up was designed in such way that the heat was extracted only through the water-cooled bottom, promoting vertical upward directional solidification. The experimental results permitted to establish correlations between thermal parameters and secondary dendrite arm spacings with ultimate tensile strength and elongation. It was concluded that the microstructural refinement has significantly improved the elongation (of about 10%). It was also found that, in a range of the cooling rate of about 0.5 and 10 ºC/s, the Sn-4 wt% Zn solder alloy has lower variation of the tensile strength (31 to 32 MPa) and elongation than the Sn-12 wt% Zn solder alloy (29 to 33 MPa).
Sn-Zn lead-free solder alloy; mechanical properties; dendrite arm spacings; solidification thermal parameters
