The effects of cooling rate on the solidification parameters and microstructure of Al-7Si-0.3Mg-0.15 Fe alloy during solidification process were studied.To obtain different cooling rates,the step casting with five different thicknesses was used and the cooling rates and solidification parameters were determined by computer-aided thermal analysis method.The results show that at higher cooling rates,the primary α（Al） dendrite nucleation temperature,eutectic reaction temperature and solidus temperature shift to lower temperatures.Besides,with increasing cooling rate from 0.19 ℃/s up to 6.25 ℃/s,the secondary dendritic arm spacing decreases from 68 μm to 20 μm,and the primary dendritic volume fraction declines by approximately 5%.In addition,it reduces the length of Fe-bearing phase from 28 μm to 18 μm with a better uniform distribution.It is also found that high cooling rates make for modifying eutectic silicon into fibrous branched morphology,and decreasing block or lamella shape eutectic silicon.
A three-dimensional （3-D） modified cellular automaton （MCA） method was developed for simulating the dendrite morphology of cubic system alloys. Two-dimensional （2-D） equations of growth velocities of the dendrite tip, interface curvature and anisotropy of the surface energy were extended to 3-D system in the model. Therefore, the model was able to describe the morphology evolution of 3-D dendrites. Then, the model was applied to simulate the mechanism of spacing adjustment for 3-D columnar dendrite growth, and the competitive growth of columnar dendrites with different preferred growth orientations under constant temperature gradient and pulling velocity. Directional solidification experiments of NH4Cl-H2O transparent alloy were performed. It was found that the simulated results compared well with the experimental results. Therefore, the model was reliable for simulating the 3-D dendrite growth of cubic system alloys.
Since the characteristic of dendrite is an important factor determining the performance of castings, a twodimensional cellular automaton model with decentered square algorithm is developed for quantitatively predicting the dendritic growth during solidification process. The growth kinetics of solid/liquid interface are determined by the local equilibrium composition and local actual liquid composition, and the calculation of the solid fraction increment is based on these two compositions to avoid the solution of growth velocity. In order to validate the developed model, quantitative simulations of steady-state dendritic features over a range of undercooling was performed and the results exhibited good agreement with the predictions of LGK（Liptone Glicksman-Kurz） model. Meanwhile, it is demonstrated that the proposed model can be applied to simulate multiple equiaxed dendritic growth, as well as columnar dendritic growth with or without equiaxed grain formation in directional solidification of AleC u alloys. It has been shown that the model is able to simulate the growth process of multi-dendrites with various preferential orientations and can reproduce a wide range of complex dendritic growth phenomena such as nucleation, coarsening of dendrite arms, side branching in dendritic morphologies, competitive growth as well as the interaction among surrounding dendrites.
Numerical heat-transfer and turbulent flow model for an industrial high-pressure gas quenching vacuum furnace was established to simulate the heating,holding and gas fan quenching of a low rhenium-bearing Ni-based single crystal turbine blade.The mesh of simplified furnace model was built using finite volume method and the boundary conditions were set up according to the practical process.Simulation results show that the turbine blade geometry and the mutual shielding among blades have significant influence on the uniformity of the temperature distribution.The temperature distribution at sharp corner,thin wall and corner part is higher than that at thick wall part of blade during heating,and the isotherms show a toroidal line to the center of thick wall.The temperature of sheltered units is lower than that of the remaining part of blade.When there is no shelteration among multiple blades,the temperature distribution for all blades is almost identical.The fluid velocity field,temperature field and cooling curves of the single and multiple turbine blades during gas fan quenching were also simulated.Modeling results indicate that the loading tray,free outlet and the location of turbine blades have important influences on the flow field.The high-speed gas flows out from the nozzle is divided by loading tray,and the free outlet enhanced the two vortex flow at the end of the furnace door.The closer the blade is to the exhaust outlet and the nozzle,the greater the flow velocity is and the more adequate the flow is.The blade geometry has an effect on the cooling for single blade and multiple blades during gas fan quenching,and the effects in double layers differs from that in single layer.For single blade,the cooing rate at thin-walled part is lower than that at thick-walled part,the cooling rate at sharp corner is greater than that at tenon and blade platform,and the temperature at regions close to the internal position is decreased more slowly than that close to the surface.For multiple blades in single layer,the tempe
Due to the extensive application of Al-Si alloys in the automotive and aerospace industries as structural components, an understanding of their microstructural formation, such as dendrite and(Al+Si) eutectic, is of great importance to control the desirable microstructure, so as to modify the performance of castings. Since previous major themes of microstructural simulation are dendrite and regular eutectic growth, few efforts have been paid to simulate the irregular eutectic growth. Therefore, a multiphase cellular automaton(CA) model is developed and applied to simulate the time-dependent Al-Si irregular eutectic growth. Prior to model establishment, related experiments were carried out to investigate the influence of cooling rate and Sr modification on the growth of eutectic Si. This CA model incorporates several aspects, including growth algorithms and nucleation criterion, to achieve the competitive and cooperative growth mechanism for nonfaceted-faceted Al-Si irregular eutectic. The growth kinetics considers thermal undercooling, constitutional undercooling, and curvature undercooling, as well as the anisotropic characteristic of eutectic Si growth. The capturing rule takes into account the effects of modification on the silicon growth behaviors.The simulated results indicate that for unmodified alloy, the higher eutectic undercooling results in the higher eutectic growth velocity, and a more refined eutectic microstructure as well as narrower eutectic lamellar spacing. For modified alloy, the eutectic silicon tends to be obvious fibrous morphology and the morphology of eutectic Si is determined by both chemical modifier and cooling rate. The predicted microstructure of Al-7Si alloy under different solidification conditions shows that this proposed model can successfully reproduce both dendrite and eutectic microstructures.
