Two new classes of growth morphologies, called doublons and seaweed, were simulated using a phase-field method. The evolution of doublon and seaweed morphologies was obtained in directional solidification. The influence of orientation and velocity on the growth morphology was investigated. It was indicated that doublons preferred growing with its crystallographic axis aligned with the heat flow direction. Seaweed, on the other hand, could be obtained by tilting the crystalline axis to 45°. Stable doublons could only exist in a range of velocity regime. Beyond this regime the patterns formed would be unstable. The simulation results agreed with the reported experimental results qualitatively.
With the multiphase field method, the stability of lamellar basic state is investigated during the directional solidification of eutectic alloy CBr4-C2Cl6. A great number of lamellar patterns observed in experiments are simulated, and a stability diagram for lamellar pattern selections is presented. The simulated growth behaviours of these patterns are found to be qualitatively consistent with Karma et al＇s numerical calculations and experimental results. The formation of the primary instability is attributed to the destabilization of solute boundary layer.
The phase field method has been mainly used to simulate the growth of a single crystal in the past. But polycrystalline materials predominate in engineering. In this work, a phase field model for multigrain solidification is developed, which takes into account the random crystallographic orientations of crystallites and preserves the rotational invariance of the free energy. The morphological evolution of equiaxial multigrain solidification is predicted and the effect of composition on transformation kinetics is studied. The numerical results indicate that due to the soft impingement of grains the Avrami exponent varies with the initial melt composition and the solidification fraction.
