Abstract
Ni-based superalloys are the preferred material to manufacture turbine blades for their high temperature strength, microstructural stability and corrosion resistance. As a new method, liquid-metal cooling (LMC) process is prospective used in manufacturing large-size turbines blades. Unfortunately, there are many casting defects during LMC directional solidification, such as stray grain, freckle, cracking. Moreover, the trial and error method is time and money cost and lead to a long R&D cycle. As a powerful tool, numerical simulation can be used to study LMC directional solidification processes, to predict final microstructures and optimize process parameters. Mathematical models of microstructure nucleation and growth were established based on the cellular automaton-finite difference (CA-FD) method to simulate meso-scale grain and micro dendrite growth behavior and morphology. Simulated and experimental results were compared in this work, and they agreed very well with each other. Meso-scale grain evolution and micro dendritic distribution at a large scale were investigated in detail, and the results indicated that grain numbers reduced with the increase of height of the casting, and stray grain will be relatively easy to produce in the platform. In addition, secondary dendrite arms were very tiny at the bottom of the casting, and they will coarsen as the he height of the cross section increased.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
F.R.N. Nabarro, The superiority of superalloys. Mater. Sci. Eng. A 184, 167–171 (1994)
B.H. Kear, E.R. Thompson, Aircraft gas turbine materials and processes. Science 208, 847–856 (1980)
M. Rappaz, Modeling and characterization of grain structures and defects in solidification. Curr. Opin. Solid State Mater. Sci. 20, 37–45 (2016)
D. Pan, Q.Y. Xu, B.C Liu, Modeling of grain selection during directional solidification of single crystal superalloy turbine blade castings. JOM, 62(5), 30–34 (2010)
H. Zhang, Q.Y. Xu, N. Tang et al., Numerical simulation of microstructure evolution during directional solidification process in directional solidified (DS) turbine blades. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 54, 3191–3202 (2011)
M.M. Franke, R.M. Hilbinger, A. Lohmuller et al., The effect of liquid metal cooling on thermal gradients in directional solidification of superalloys: thermal analysis. J. Mater. Process. Technol. 213, 2081–2088 (2013)
F. Wang, D.X. Ma, J. Zhang et al., A high thermal gradient directional solidification method for growing superalloy single crystals. J. Mater. Process. Technol. 214, 3112–3121 (2014)
X.W. Yan, N. Tang, X.F. Liu et al., Modeling and simulation of directional solidification by LMC process for nickel base superalloy casting. Acta Metall. Sin. 51, 1288–1296 (2015)
A.J. Elliott, S. Tin, W.T. King et al., Directional solidification of large superalloy castings with radiation and liquid-metal cooling: a comparative assessment. Metall. Mater. Trans. A 35A, 3221–3231 (2004)
A. Kermanpur, N. Varahram, P. Davami et al., Thermal and grain-structure simulation in a land-based turbine blade directionally solidified with the liquid metal cooling process. Metall. Mater. Trans. B 31B, 1293–1304 (2000)
M. Rappaz, C.A. Gandin, Probabilistic modelling of microstructure formation in solidification process. Acta Metall. Mater. 41, 345–360 (1993)
H. Zhang, Q.Y. Xu, Multi-scale simulation of directional dendrites growth in superalloys. J. Mater. Process. Technol. 238, 132–141 (2016)
W. Kurz, B. Giovanola, R. Trivedi, Theory of microstructural development during rapid solidification. Acta Metall. 34, 823–830 (1986)
R. Chen, Q.Y. Xu, B.C. Liu, Cellular automaton simulation of three-dimensional dendrite growth in Al-7Si-Mg ternary aluminum alloys. Comput. Mater. Sci. 105, 90–100 (2015)
J.S. Langer, H. Müller-Krumbhaar, Theory of dendritic growth-I. Elements of a stability analysis. Acta Metall. 26, 1681–1978 (1978)
H. Zhang, Q.Y. Xu, Z.X. Shi et al., Numerical simulation of dendrite grain growth of DD6 superalloy during directional solidification process. Acta Metall. Sin. 50, 345–354 (2014)
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2011CB706801), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51374137 and 51171089), and the National Science and Technology Major Projects (Grant Nos. 2012ZX04012-011 and 2011ZX04014-052).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society
About this paper
Cite this paper
Yan, X. et al. (2017). Numerical Simulation of Meso-Micro Structure in Ni-Based Superalloy During Liquid Metal Cooling Process. In: Mason, P., et al. Proceedings of the 4th World Congress on Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME 2017). The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57864-4_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57864-4_23
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57863-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57864-4
eBook Packages: Chemistry and Materials ScienceChemistry and Material Science (R0)