Solidification of Multicomponent Alloys

Abstract

Most commercial casting alloys are multicomponent (three or more) and involve multiphase solidification. Processing objectives include either avoidance of microsegregation associated with the formation of detrimental minority phases, or control of the amount, the morphology, and the distribution of beneficial minority phases. Yet, understanding morphological stability and multiphase pattern formation in such systems is not trivial because of the high number of degrees of freedom and solidifying phases. For example, the eutectic reaction which is nonvariant in binary alloys becomes univariant in ternary alloys. As a consequence, the two-phase solid/liquid (S/L) interface can exhibit cellular or dendrite morphological transitions.