Abstract
During casting, often a dendritic microstructure is formed, resulting in a columnar or an equiaxed grain structure, or leading to a transition from columnar to equiaxed growth (CET). The detailed knowledge of the critical parameters for the CET is important because the microstructure affects materials properties. To provide unique data for testing of fundamental theories of grain and microstructure formation, solidification experiments in microgravity environment were performed within the European Space Agency Microgravity Application Promotion (ESA MAP) project Columnar-to-Equiaxed Transition in SOLidification Processing (CETSOL). Reduced gravity allows for purely diffusive solidification conditions, i.e., suppressing melt flow and sedimentation and floatation effects. On-board the International Space Station, Al-7 wt.% Si alloys with and without grain refiners were solidified in different temperature gradients and with different cooling conditions. Detailed analysis of the microstructure and the grain structure showed purely columnar growth for nonrefined alloys. The CET was detected only for refined alloys, either as a sharp CET in the case of a sudden increase in the solidification velocity or as a progressive CET in the case of a continuous decrease of the temperature gradient. The present experimental data were used for numerical modeling of the CET with three different approaches: (1) a front tracking model using an equiaxed growth model, (2) a three-dimensional (3D) cellular automaton–finite element model, and (3) a 3D dendrite needle network method. Each model allows for predicting the columnar dendrite tip undercooling and the growth rate with respect to time. Furthermore, the positions of CET and the spatial extent of the CET, being sharp or progressive, are in reasonably good quantitative agreement with experimental measurements.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been carried out as part of the CETSOL European Space Agency microgravity application program (ESTEC Contract Number 14313/01/NL/SH). The authors would like to acknowledge funding by the German BMWi/DLR (FKZ 50WM1443), and the financial support of the Enterprise Ireland via European Space Agency PRODEX Programme (Contract Number 4000107132). A. Karma and C.-H. Chen acknowledge support of NASA Grant NNX14AB34G. The authors acknowledge Hydro-Aluminium Rolled Products GmbH for providing the alloys for the flight samples.
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Zimmermann, G., Sturz, L., Nguyen-Thi, H. et al. Columnar and Equiaxed Solidification of Al-7 wt.% Si Alloys in Reduced Gravity in the Framework of the CETSOL Project. JOM 69, 1269–1279 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-017-2397-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-017-2397-4