Orientation-dependent morphological stability of grain boundary groove

Crystal orientation influences the morphological stability of solid-liquid interface during directional solidification of alloy, resulting in the variation of solidified microstructure. In this paper, the morphological evolution near grain boundary grooves (GBGs) with different crystal orientations in a dilute succinonitrile alloy under low temperature gradient and interface velocity is observed in situ. Under experimental conditions, the macroscopic solid-liquid interface is planar and keeps stable, while in GBGs there emerge protrusion and undulation. It is found that the morphological stability of GBG is dependent on crystal orientation. Specifically, for succinonitrile with a body-centered cubic crystal structure, GBGs around the 〈100〉 crystal orientation keep stable, while those apart from the 〈100〉 crystal orientation become unstable under the same conditions. So it is concluded that 〈100〉 crystal orientation favors the morphological stability of GBG.