Modeling of coupled motion and growth interaction of equiaxed dendritic crystals in a binary alloy during solidification

Numerical Simulation of Three-Dimensional Dendrite Movement Based on the CA–LBM Method

At present, the calculation of three-dimensional (3D) dendrite motion using the cellular automata (CA) method is still in its infancy. In this paper, a 3D dendrite motion model is constructed. The heat, mass, and momentum transfer process in the solidification process of the alloy melt are calculated using a 3D Lattice–Boltzmann method (LBM). The growth process for the alloy microstructure is calculated using the CA method. The interactions between dendrites and the melt are assessed using the Ladd method. The solid–liquid boundary of the solute field in the movement process is assessed using the solute extrapolation method. The translational velocity of the equiaxed crystals in motion is calculated using the classical mechanical law. The rationality of the model is verified and the movement of single and multiple 3D equiaxed crystals is simulated. Additionally, the difference between 3D dendrite movement and two-dimensional (2D) dendrite movement is analyzed. The results demonstrate that the growth of moving dendrites is asymmetric. The growth velocity and falling velocity of the dendrite in the 3D model are faster than that in 2D model, while the simulation result is more realistic than that of the 2D model. When multiple dendrites move, the movement direction of the dendrites will change due to the merging of flow fields and other factors.

Phase-field modeling of complex dendritic structures in constrained growth of hexagonal close-packed crystals

We perform the phase-field modeling to investigate the growth pattern selections of the complex dendritic structures in constrained growth with different solidification and orientation conditions. The results show that hexagonal close-packed (hcp) crystals emerge as dendritic and cellular arrays in different planes, originating from the specific hcp anisotropy that allows different growth preferences between the basal and cylindrical planes. A morphological transition of the titled dendrites to tip-splitting dendrites arises reflecting the competition between the preferred orientation induced primary growth and the misorientation induced sidebranching formation. Furthermore, the dendritic patterns exhibit sharper tips and the more significant sidebranches, while the cellular pattern is changed from the symmetric cells to the tip-splitting cells, and to seaweeds with the increase of anisotropy strength, indicating the competitive mechanism of the in-plane anisotropy induced growth promotion and the out-plane anisotropy induced growth restriction. We expect to understand the growth competition, the morphology selection, as well as the orientation dependence of the complex dendritic structures in the three-dimensional (3D) constrained growth.

The effect of density changes on crystallization with a mushy layer

A nonlinear problem with two moving boundaries of the phase transition, which describes the process of directional crystallization in the presence of a quasi-equilibrium two-phase layer, is solved analytically for the steady-state process. The exact analytical solution in a two-phase layer is found in a parametric form (the solid phase fraction plays the role of this parameter) with allowance for possible changes in the density of the liquid phase accordingly to a linearized equation of state and arbitrary value of the solid fraction at the boundary between the two-phase and solid layers. Namely, the solute concentration, temperature, solid fraction in the mushy layer, liquid and solid phases, mushy layer thickness and its velocity are found analytically. The theory under consideration is in good agreement with experimental data. The obtained solutions have great potential applications in analysing similar processes with a two-phase layer met in materials science, geophysics, biophysics and medical physics, where the directional crystallization processes with a quasi-equilibrium mushy layer can occur. This article is part of the theme issue 'Patterns in soft and biological matters'.

Numerical Model Study of Multiple Dendrite Motion Behavior in Melt Based on LBM-CA Method

In this paper, a new method is proposed to solve the solute field of moving grains, and a Cellular automaton (CA)-Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM)-Semi rebound format(Ladd) coupling model which can accurately simulate the motion behavior of multiple dendrites is established. The growth process of microstructure in the solidification process of Al-4.7% Cu alloy ingot was calculated by Cellular automaton (CA) method, the momentum, heat, and mass transfer processes were calculated by Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), and the melt-dendrite sharp interface interaction was treated by Ladd method. The reliability of the model is verified, and then the growth and movement of single dendrite and multiple dendrites under the action of gravity field are simulated. The simulation results show that the growth and movement mode of multiple dendrites are quite different from that of single dendrite, which is shown in two aspects: (1) the original motion state of dendrites is changed by the combination of flow field, which slows down the falling speed of dendrites to a certain extent; (2) the fusion of solute field between dendrites changed the original growth mode of boundary dendrites and increased their rotation speed.