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Competitions incorporated in rapid solidification of the bulk undercooled eutectic Ni78.6Si21.4 alloy

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Abstract

Adopting glass fluxing and cyclic superheating, high undercooling up to ∼550 K was achieved in bulk eutectic Ni78.6Si21.4 alloy melt. With increasing undercooling, the as-solidified microstructure shows an interesting evolution, i.e., regular lamellar eutectic, coarse directional dendrite, quasi-spherical dendritic colony, fine directional dendrite, fine quasi-spherical dendritic colony, and superfine anomalous eutectic. In combination with different theories for nucleation and growth, the microstructure evolution was analyzed and described using competitions incorporated in rapid solidification of the bulk undercooled eutectic Ni78.6Si21.4 alloy. For undercooling below and above 180 K, Ni3Si, and α-Ni are primarily solidified, respectively. This phase selection can be ascribed to competitive nucleation. As undercooling increases, a transition of the prevalent nucleation mode from site saturation to continuous nucleation was interpreted in terms of competition of nucleation mode. Accordingly, the superfine anomalous eutectic is obtained, due to the substantially increased continuous nucleation rate, i.e., grain refinement occurring at high undercooling (e.g., ∼550 K).

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FIG. 1
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FIG. 3
TABLE I.
FIG. 4
FIG. 5
FIG. 6
TABLE II.
FIG. 7

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the financial support of New Century Excellent Person Supporting Project (NCET-05-870), the Fundamental Research Project of National Defense of China (A2720060295), the Project Sponsored by the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry (N6CJ0002), the Scientific and Technological Creative Foundation of Youth in Northwestern Polytechnical University, and the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 50501020, 50395103, and 50431030). F. Liu is also grateful to the Fundamental Research Fund of Northwestern Polytechnical University. F. Liu appreciates Dr. Yao Wenjing for numerical calculations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710072, People’s Republic of China

    Feng Liu, Yuzeng Chen, Gencang Yang, Yiping Lu, Zheng Chen & Yaohe Zhou

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  1. Feng Liu
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Correspondence to Feng Liu.

APPENDIX: Calculation of f(Θ) for α-Ni and Ni3Si Phases

APPENDIX: Calculation of f(Θ) for α-Ni and Ni3Si Phases

In the undercooled melts, the critical condition for crystallization can be given as

$$JV{t_{\text{N}}} = N$$
((A1))

where V is the volume of sample, tN is the nucleation time that can be directly obtained from the measured temperature–time profile, and N is the number of nucleation events, which can be assumed to be the number of dendritic grain or eutectic colony. V and tN, with respect to ΔT = 180 K where both α-Ni and Ni3Si are assumed to be able to nucleate, are listed in Table I. As shown in Fig. 3, N is equal to 6.97 × 103 at ΔT =180 K, Then, applying Eq. (A1), the value of J at ΔT = 180 K was calculated as 5 × 106 m−3s−1. In combination with Eq. (3), f(θ) for α-Ni and Ni3Si phases can be calculated as 0.26 and 0.39, respectively. Because of the structural difference between α-Ni and Ni3Si, the catalyzed effect of heterogeneities on their nucleation was certainly expected to be quite different. Thus, f(θ) values for α-Ni and Ni3Si phases should certainly be different.

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Liu, F., Chen, Y., Yang, G. et al. Competitions incorporated in rapid solidification of the bulk undercooled eutectic Ni78.6Si21.4 alloy. Journal of Materials Research 22, 2953–2963 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1557/JMR.2007.0380

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