In-situ studies and simulation of equiaxed solidification in Al–20Cu alloy

Abstract

The equiaxed solidification of Al–20Cu alloy under different cooling rates was investigated using in-situ synchrotron X-ray radiography. The results showed that mean grain size increases rapidly at the early stage of solidification, then reaches the final grain size gradually. And the change of final mean grain size with cooling rate follows d = 4132.3 × R^−0.86. In addition, the evolution of grain size in Al–20Cu alloy was also simulated by ProCAST software. The experimental and simulation results indicated that, in the range of the cooling rate (5.0–7.5 K min⁻¹), the major factor influencing the final grain size is the maximum nucleation density, while the nucleation undercooling has an insignificant effect on the final grain size.

KEYWORDS:

• Equaixed solidification
• in-situ synchrotron X-ray radiography
• ProCAST simulation
• cooling rate
• grain size
• Al-20Cu alloy
• nucleation undercooling
• nucleation density

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFB1106800), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51771152, 51227001 and 51420105005), and the Major Science and Technology project of Ningxia during ‘‘the 13th Five-Year Plan Period’’ (No. 2018BCE01001).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China [Grant number 2018YFB1106800], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant numbers 51771152, 51227001 and 51420105005], and the Major Science and Technology project of Ningxia during ‘the 13th Five-Year Plan Period’ [Grant number 2018BCE01001].