On producing an alloy of uniform composition during rapid solidification processing

Abstract

The fundamental mechanisms responsible for both micro scale and macro scale compositional variations during cellular and dendritic solidification are discussed. It is shown that presently available models for cellular and dendritic growth in alloys predict only the elimination of macrosegregation during rapid solidification but that microsegregation still persists even in this regime. A simple model is proposed here to describe the complete elimination of microsegregation in the rapid solidification regime. A solid of ideally uniform composition can be produced with no micro or macro segregation at both very low large solidifation rates.