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Spurious Grain Formation at Cross-Sectional Expansion During Directional Solidification: Influence of Thermosolutal Convection

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Abstract

Formation of spurious grains during directional solidification (DS) of Al-7 wt.% Si and Al-19 wt.% Cu alloys through an abrupt increase in cross-sectional area has been examined by experiments and by numerical simulations. Stray grains were observed in the Al-19 wt.% Cu samples and almost none in the Al-7 wt.% Si. The locations of the stray grains correlate well where numerical solutions indicate the solute-rich melt to be flowing up the thermal gradient faster than the isotherm velocity. It is proposed that the spurious grain formation occurred by fragmentation of slender tertiary dendrite arms was enhanced by thermosolutal convection. In Al-7 wt.% Si, the dendrite fragments sink in the surrounding melt and get trapped in the dendritic array growing around them, and therefore they do not grow further. In the Al-19 wt.% Cu alloy, on the other hand, the dendrite fragments float in the surrounding melt and some find conducive thermal conditions for further growth and become stray grains.

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Notes

  1. In this article, “wt.%” is dropped, so Al-7 wt.% Si is simply designated as Al-7Si, and so on.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by NASA Grants NX10AV40G and NNX14AM18G. The Al-19% Cu and Al-7% Si alloys for this study were kindly provided by Dr. Men G. Chu at ALCOA Technical Center.

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Author notes

  1. M. Lauer

    Present address: ME Elecmetal Inc., Duluth, MN, 55808, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical Engineering Program, Middle East Technical University - Northern Cyprus Campus, Güzelyurt via Mersin 10, Turkey

    M. Ghods

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    M. Lauer & D. R. Poirier

  3. Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Department, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, 44114, USA

    S. R. Upadhyay & S. N. Tewari

  4. NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, 35811, USA

    R. N. Grugel

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  1. M. Ghods
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Correspondence to M. Ghods.

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Ghods, M., Lauer, M., Upadhyay, S.R. et al. Spurious Grain Formation at Cross-Sectional Expansion During Directional Solidification: Influence of Thermosolutal Convection. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 27, 3122–3130 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-018-3364-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-018-3364-0

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