Abstract Scope |
Unusual dendritic growth forms have been known for many decades. But only recently has this behavior been more profoundly studied with experiments and simulations to understand the underlying mechanisms and driving forces: the anisotropy of the interfacial energy, the kinetics of attachment, or quasicrystal-mediated nucleation and growth. Accordingly, concentration gradients at the interface, fast growth rates, specific minor element additions, or solid-state transformations are the cause. Using different experimental techniques, reaching low to high undercoolings and growth rates, we study different alloy systems to analyze the growth characteristics of the primary phase. The focus lies on understanding the connection between alloy composition and crystallographic growth direction selection, as well as the development of dendritic morphologies. In situ imaging techniques are applied to study dendritic shape characteristics during solidification in detail. EBSD is used to locally analyze crystal orientations of a large number of solidified dendrites on a mesoscopic scale. |