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Dendritic Features of the Solidification Structure in a Large AA3004 Direct Chill (DC) Cast Ingot

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Abstract

Slices taken from the largest type of commercial DC casting ingot were examined to reveal its dendritic features to shed lights on the open questions in the literature related to the effect of grain refiners and the convection-induced floating grains on the final grain size distribution in a DC cast ingot. It is found that the ingot comprises globular equiaxed grains featuring coarse secondary dendrite arms and short primary dendrite arms except for a thin chill layer, about 1 mm thick, at its surfaces, featuring fully developed large equiaxed dendrites of long primary dendrite arms and many fine secondary dendrite arms. In the thin chill layer the secondary dendrite arm spacing is smaller by about two times but the grain size, surprisingly, is greater about two times than that in the globular grain zone. Huge floating grains exist at the boundary on the side of the globular grain zone, indicating dendritic fragments are spreading across the entire ingot except for the 1 mm thin chill zone. Such unique features are formed due to the thermal history of grains in the sump. The temperature range in which a floating grain can survive is analyzed and suggested to include temperatures slightly above the liquidus of the alloy. Theories associated with the effect of convection on the formation of dendrites are used to explain the dendritic features in ingots. It appears that the addition of grain refiners produces equiaxed grains only in the chill layer. In the globular grain zone, fragments or floating grains are responsible for the formation of equiaxed grains in DC cast ingots. Since DC casting is the most quiescent metal casting process, grain refinement mechanism associated with the fragmentation and multiplication of dendrites should be considered as dominant mechanisms in grain refining of alloy for gravity casting processes and solidification of an alloy under the influence of external fields.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the United States Department of Energy, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Industrial Technologies, Industrial Materials for the Future (IMF) Program, Materials Processing Laboratory Users (MPLUS) Facility, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. The author thanks Logan Aluminum, Inc., for providing the ingot slices, Mr. E.C. Hatfield for the handling and etching the ingot slices, and Mr. J. Mayotte for optical metallography.

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Han, Q. Dendritic Features of the Solidification Structure in a Large AA3004 Direct Chill (DC) Cast Ingot. Metall Mater Trans B 53, 786–797 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11663-022-02423-7

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