Part IV – April 1968 - Papers - The Influence of Mechanical Stirring on the Columnar to Equiaxed Transition in Aluminum-Copper Alloys

Rotary oscillation of the mold has been used to produce mechanical stirring of the melt during unidirectional solidification. Al-Cu alloys (1 to 4 wt pct Cu) were solidified to study the influence of alloy composition, temperature at which intensive cooling was initiated, and intensity of stirring on the temperature distribution in the sample, the resulting structure, and the copper microsegregation at the columnar to equiaxed transition. The Proposed explanation for the equiaxed solidification in stirred castings consists of the melting off of dendrite fragments, their partial remelting in hotter liquid, and the subsequent growth of the surviving part when the temperature of the melt is lowered. This may result in the formation of a crystal network, which can stop the growth of the columnar crystals and produce the equiaxed zone. It has long been known and many times affirmed that ultrasonic vibrations or relative motion of liquid and solid can significantly reduce the length of the columnar zone and refine the grains in the equiaxed zone in ingots and castings. Because of the technological importance of these phenomena many investigations have been conducted in which ultrasonic energy or mechanical vibration,1-6 electromagnetic stirring,7"10'17 magnetic stirring,"'12 or mechanical stirring13'14 were used to produce the relative liquid-solid motion. More recently, the question of the importance of natural (or thermal) convection has been raised.15-l7 Several possible mechanisms have been suggested.l,8,18-20 They can be divided into two main groups. The first group includes such nucleation hypotheses as nucleation frequency enhancement due to cavitation at the mold wall or other surfaces; cavita-tion in the body of the liquid resulting from the pressure wave, or an agglomeration mechanism, which involves the formation of nuclei by the accretion of subcritical nuclei. The second group considers the grain-refining action to be due to crystal multiplication phenomena such as the removal of the dendrite fragments by viscous forces or by a high-pressure cycle following cavitation or by a melting-off process. Sbme recent investigations give good experimental support to the melting-off proposa1.21-23 The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of mechanical stirring during the unidirectional solidification on the structure of alloy samples and on the solidification variables. The motion of the liquid was produced by rotary oscillation of the mold around its vertical axis.