Influences of flow intensity, cooling rate and nucleation density at ingot surface on deflective growth of dendrites for Al-based alloy

Abstract

The dendrite tip growth kinetics in the flow field and the decentred quadrilateral growth algorithm for describing the evolution of grain growth are combined in Cellular Automaton model to predict the deflective growth of dendrites inclined toward upstream direction. The influences of flow intensity, cooling rate (or solidification rate), nucleation density at ingot surface on the deflective growth of dendrites are discussed. The increase of flow intensity dominantly forces the dendrites to grow in upstream direction; on the contrary, the increases of nucleation density at ingot surface and cooling rate suppress slightly this deflective growth. The relations predicted among deflection angle, flow intensity and solidification rate for Al-Si alloy and Al-Cu alloy show the same tendency as that in Okano et al.'s empirical expression deduced from experiments on steel. The deflection angle predicted for Al-Cu alloy fits well with previous experimental results. © 2009 ISIJ.