Effect of crystallographic orientation on instability behavior of planar interface in directional solidification

The instability process of planar interface in directional solidification with respect to the crystallographic orientation is studied using a transparent model alloy - succinonitrile-acetone. Three typical crystal grains which have preferred dendrite, tilted dendrite and seaweed patterns at rapid pulling velocity respectively are chosen in our experiment. The experimental results show that the preferred dendrite grain has the shortest incubation time and the smallest initial perturbation wavelength of planar interface instability, the tilted dendrite grain has the largest ones and the seaweed grain has median ones. These results accord qualitatively with previous analytical results and phase-field simulation results. It is also found that the interfacial non-steady-state evolution behaviors of the preferred dendrite grain and the tilted dendrite grain are significantly different from that of the seaweed grain, suggesting that the non-steady-state evolution behavior of planar interface instability is closely related to the crystallographic orientation.