Fundamentals of Solidification

Fourth Revised Edition

W. Kurz
Professor, Department of Materials, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

and D.J. Fisher

Associate Editor, Diffusion and Defect Data, Trans Tech Publications Ltd.,
Uetikon-Zuerich, Switzerland

TRANS TECH PUBLICATIONS LTD

Switzerland • Germany • UK • USA
 CONTENTS

1. Introduction 1
1.1 The Importance of Solidification 1
1.2 Heat Extraction 5
1.3 Solidification Microstructurcs 11
1.4 Capillarity Effects 12
1.5 Solute Redistribution 15
2. Atom Transfer at the Solid/Liquid Interface 21
2.1 Conditions for Nucleation 22
2.2 Rate of Nucleus Formation 28
2.3 Interface Structure 34
3. Morphological Instability of a Solid/Liquid Interface 45
3.1 Interface Instability of Pure Substances 46
3.2 Solute Pile-Up at a Planar Solid/Liquid Interface 48
3.3 Interface Instability of Alloys 50
3.4 Perturbation Analyses 55
4. Solidification Microstructure: Cells and Dendrites 63
4.1 Constrained and Unconstrained Growth 65
4.2 Morphology and Crystallography of Dendrites 65
4.3 Diffusion Field at the Tip of a Needle-Like Crystal 69
4.4 Operating Point of the Needle Crystal - Tip Radius 74
4.5 Primary Spacing of Dendrites after Directional Growth 80
4.6 Secondary Spacing after Directional or Equiaxed Growth 85
5. Solidification Microstructure: Eutectic and Peritectic 93
5.1 Regular and Irregular Eutectics 94
5.2 Diffusion-Coupled Growth 96
5.3 Capillarity Effects 101
5.4 Operating Range of Eutectics 104
5.5 Competitive Growth of Dendrites and Eutectic 108
5.6 Peritectic Growth Ill
6. Solute Redistribution 117
6.1 Mass-Balance in Directional Solidification 118
6.2 The Initial Transient 120
6.3 The Steady State 121
6.4 The Final Transient 122
6.5 Rapid Diffusion in the Liquid - Small Systems 122
6.6 Microsegregation 126
 Contents

7. Rapid Solidification Microstructures 133

7.1 Departure from Local Equilibrium 134
7.2 Absolute Stability 139
7.3 Rapid Dendritic/Cellular Growth 142
7.4 Rapid Eutectic Growth 146
7.5 Intercellular Solute Redistribution 151
Summary 157

Appendices 163
1. Mathematical Modelling of the Macroscopic Heat Flux 163
2. Solute and Heat Flux Calculations Related to Microstructure Formation. 177
3. Local Equilibrium at the Solid/Liquid Interface 199
4. Nucleation Kinetics in a Pure Substance 211
5. Atomic Structure of the Solid/Liquid Interface 216
6. Thermodynamics of Rapid Solidification 220
7. Interface Stability Analysis 226
8. Diffusion at a Dendrite Tip 238
9. Dendrite Tip Radius and Spacing 247
10. Eutectic Growth 261
11. Transient in Solute Diffusion 275
12. Mass Balance Equations 280
13. Homogenisation of Interdendritic Segregation in the Solid State 289
14. Relevant Physical Properties for Solidification 293
Symbols 295

Index 301