Microstructural evolution and microsegregation in directional solidification of hypoeutectic Al−Cu alloy: A comparison between experimental data and numerical results obtained via phase-field model

Abstract

The objective of the work is focused on predictions of microsegregation, solidification speed, dendritic arm spacings and dendrite morphology by phase-field model. The numerical results were compared with experimental data. The experimental values for cooling rates and effective partition coefficient were adopted during calculations. The results of microsegregation through phase-field model show excellent agreement with the experimental data. Such excellent agreement is because cooling rates, effective partition coefficient and back-diffusion of solute are considered in the model. For solidification speed, the calculation results show good agreement with the experimental data. Tertiary dendritic arm spacing calculated with phase-field model is compared with experimental data. The results show good agreement between them. The dendrite arm spacing varies with position because high cooling rates are responsible for the refinement effect on microstructure. Finally, two-dimensional simulation produced a dendrite that is similar to that found in the experiment.