Competitive grain growth in directional solidification investigated by phase field simulation

During directional solidification, the competitive dendritic growth between various oriented grains is a key factor to obtain desirable texture. In order to understand the mechanism of competitive dendritic growth, the phase field method was adopted to simulate the microstructure evolution of bicrystal samples. The simulation has well reproduced the whole competitive growth process for both diverging and converging dendrites. In converging case, besides the block of the unfavorably oriented dendrite by the favorably oriented one, the unfavorably oriented dendrite is also able to overgrow the favorable one under the condition of relatively low pulling velocity. This unusual overgrowth is dictated by the solute interaction of the converging dendrite tips. In diverging case, it was found that the grain boundary can be either inclined or parallel to the favorably oriented grain depending on the disposition of two grains.