Rapid solidification of undercooled Ni-15%Cu （mole fraction） alloy was studied using glass fluxing and cyclic superheating. To show the effect of cooling history on the microstrucyure and microtexture evolution, the as-solidified samples were either cooled naturally or quenched into water after recalescence. At low undercooling, grain-refined microstructure has a random texture and a highly oriented texture without annealing twins for the case of naturally cooling and quenching, respectively. At high undercooling, a fully random texture as well as a number of annealing twins are observed, and recrystallization and grain growth independently happen on the cooling history. Fluid flow and recrystallization play an important role in the microtexture formation for grain refinement at both low and high undercooling.
Rapid solidification of Cu-Co immiscible alloy was investigated by glass-fluxing, spray casting and melt-spinning techniques. Both the transition from dendrite to dispersive structure and corresponding scale evolution were revealed and further elucidated in terms of the heat flow mode, nucleation and growth processes under different solidification conditions. With the increase of undercooling, columnar dendrite is replaced by dispersive structure due to the immiscible effect. In contrast, equiaxed dendrite forms in spray cast alloy due to multiple nucleation events and becomes thinner for the case of higher cooling rate. Ascribed to the enhanced non-equilibrium effect and insufficient period for collision and coagulation processes between separated droplets, fine globular dispersion appears upon the diameter of spray casting reaching 4 mm. As for the melt-spun ribbon with the highest cooling rate, a single-phase solid solution microstructure with refined grain of cellular morphology can be obtained, which is attributed to the suppression of liquid phase separation by instant solidification.
