Effect of the melt superheat on equiaxed solidification of Al-20 wt% Cu alloy investigated by in situ synchrotron radiography

Effect of the melt superheat on equiaxed solidification of Al-20 wt% Cu alloy was investigated by in-situ synchrotron radiography at Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility. For comparison, the corresponding DSC analysis was also conducted. It was found that the grain size decreased with increasing the melt superheat. The relationship between the final mean grain size and the melt superheat can be expressed as: d=4919.3×ΔT^-0.33. During solidification, the mean grain size increased sharply in the first 70 s, then reached the final grain size gradually. Furthermore, with increasing the melt superheat, the mean nucleation rate increased, which can be attributed to the fact that increasing the melt superheat led to an increase in nucleation undercooling, and the growth rate and the duration of free growth stage decreased. As the melt superheat increased from 100 °C to 160 °C, the mean nucleation rate increased by 78.2% while the mean growth rate only decreased by 19.3%, which indicated that the high mean nucleation rate and the consequent low mean growth rate may be the real reasons for grain refinement. The increased nucleation density caused earlier growth deceleration due to solutal impingement effects.