Process-scale modelling of microstructure in direct chill casting of aluminium alloys

Abstract

The mechanical properties of an alloy being related to its microstructure, the understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the grain structure formation in direct chill casting is crucial. However, the grain size prediction by modelling is difficult since a variety of multi-scale coupled phenomena have to be considered. Nucleation and growth of the grains are interrelated, and the macroscopic transport phenomena such as the motion of grains and inoculant particles with the flow impact the nucleation-gowth competition. Thus we propose to study the grain size distribution of a 5182 alloy industrial scale slab of 510 mm thickness, both non-inoculated and inoculated with Al-3Ti-1B, for which experimental grain size measurements are available. We use a volume-averaged two-phase multi-scale model that describes nucleation from inoculant particles and grain growth, fully coupled with macroscopic transport phenomena: fluid flow induced by natural convection and solidification shrinkage, heat, mass and solute mass transport, grains and inoculant particles motion. We analyze the effect of liquid and grain motion as the effect of grain morphology on microstructure formation and we show in which extent those phenomena are responsible for the grain size distribution observed experimentally. The effect of the refiner level is also studied.