A novel two-stage reheating process has been applied to investigate the microstructural evolution of semi-solid aluminum alloy 6061 at varied temperature

which was compared with that of ones in traditional reheating process.The results reveal that a desirable semi-solid microstructure with a higher roundness

smaller equivalent diameters can be obtained in the novel two-stage reheating process

significantly improving the thixoforming.The optimum microstructure with the equivalent diameter of 121.9μm and spheroidization value of 0.72 can be obtained with previously preheated to the stage-one temperature at 590 ℃for 5min

then heated to the scheme stage-two temperature at 640 ℃ within 10 min.