Dendrite growth characteristics within liquid Fe-Sb alloy

Bulk samples and small droplets of liquid Fe-10%Sb alloys are undercooled up to 429 K (0.24T _L) and 568 K (0.32T _L), respectively, with glass fluxing and free fall techniques. The high undercooling does not change the phase constitution, and only the αFe solid solution is found in the rapidly solidified alloy. The experimental results show that when the undercooling is below 296 K, the growth velocity of αFe dendrite rises exponentially with the increase of undercooling and reaches a maximum value 1.38 m/s. Subsequently, the growth velocity begins to decrease if undercooling further increases. The αFe phase grows into coarse dendrites under small undercooling conditions, whereas it becomes vermicular dendrites in highly undercooled melts. The solute trapping is closely related to the dendrite growth velocity and cooling rate rather than undercooling. Although the solute trapping can be remarkably suppressed by the rapid dendrite growth, the segregationless solidification is not observed in the present experiments due to the large solidification temperature range.