Some effects of solidification kinetics on microstructure formation in aluminium-base alloys

The development of rapid solidification technologies and their effects has provided a stimulus to seek a deeper understanding of the mechanisms by which kinetics determine solidification microstructure formation, including its scale, morphology and phase constitution. Successful application of model predictions to real situations involves coupling of heat and fluid flow considerations to the thermodynamics and kinetics of competing solidification reactions. A key element in this competition is the formation temperature of the contending constituents and their morphologies which is beyond the present scope of experimental determination at the extremes of most rapid solidification processes. The present contribution focuses on recent work on measurements of formation temperature of constituents in Al-based alloys during Bridgman solidification for comparison with model predictions. Together with associated microstructural observations, the results indicate control by heterogeneous nucleation in the case of polygonal primary silicon in hypereutectic Al–Si alloys, while competitive growth is controlling for aluminide dendrites in Al–Fe, Al–Ni and Al–Ce or Al–La alloys, for which measured tip undercoolings accord well with values calculated from dendrite growth models. Also, values of equilibrium eutectic temperature obtained by extrapolation to zero growth velocity of growth temperatures in such systems agree well with reliable values obtained by other methods and values of kinetic constants for dendrites and eutectics derived from measured velocities for extinction of the dendritic constituent are shown to be in good accord with direct measurements.