Electromagnetic confinement and solidification control of Ni-base superalloys under vacuum

The present paper is aimed of introducing two advanced technologies of electromagnetic confinement to process the Feand Ni-base alloys for castings and ingots with shaped cross section. Based on systematically investigation on the distribution behavior of magnetic and temperature field and their coupling effect, a containerless electromagnetic shaping of stainless steel and superalloy test samples were successfully realized by means of an specially designed vacuum apparatus with dual induction coils and dual frequencies and by using of a tailor - made crystallizator a near-shape superalloy turbine blade castings with directionally solidified microstructure by electromagnetic soft-contact confinement technology were also obtained. The dynamic stability and profile behavior of melt and temperature gradient during electromagnetic confinement are presented, the results by quasi-3D calculation simulating the electromagnetic shaping process in consistent with experiments are also given.