Experimental Study and Numerical Simulation of Microstructure Evolution in Al-Si Eutectic Solidification Process

Abstract

A mathematical physical model of microstructure evolution in Al-Si eutectic solidification process based on cellular automaton (CA) model was developed. Before the establishment of the model, the relevant near-eutectic experiments were carried out to analyze the effect of cooling rates measured by temperature curves on the eutectic structure which was observed through optical microscope (OM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). Then a multiphase nucleation-growth CA model was applied to simulate the Al-Si irregular eutectic structure. The model adopted an alternative nucleation mechanism to investigate the influence of the critical nucleation value associated with solute concentration during solidification process. The growth kinetics took into account the solute and thermal field. According to the crystal structure of nonfaceted eutectic Al and faceted eutectic Si, different capturing rules were employed to calculate the growth of eutectic. In addition, the model was also used to research the irregular eutectic growth under different undercooling conditions. The results revealed that smaller critical nucleation value (absolute value) or higher eutectic undercooling tended to get a more refined eutectic microstructure. By compared with experimental results, it is indicated that the microstructure evolution of Al-Si eutectic growth can be reproduced quantitatively by numerical simulation with this model.