Abstract
The nucleation kinetics of individual grains during solidification of an aluminium alloy are experimentally investigated by X-ray diffraction at a synchrotron source. The investigated aluminium alloy contained solute titanium along with micrometer size TiB2 particles, which act as substrates for heterogeneous nucleation of aluminium grains during solidification. The nucleation rate of aluminium grains during solidification is measured by different cooling rates ranging from 1 to 40 K/min. The measurements indicate that for the continuous cooling, the nucleation rate strongly decreases with time. The nucleation process is complete for solid fractions below 30% for all cooling rates. The maximum nucleation rate significantly increases with increasing cooling rates.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3640-3643 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids |
| Volume | 353 |
| Issue number | 32-40 |
| Early online date | 25 Jul 2007 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Oct 2007 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
We are thankful to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) for providing beam time to perform these experiments. Special thanks to G. Vaughan and A. Götz for assistance during the measurements. This work was financially supported in part by the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Netherlands Institute for Metals Research (NIMR).
Keywords
- Amorphous metals, metallic glasses
- Diffraction and scattering measurements
- Glass formation
- Liquid alloys and liquid metals
- Liquid crystals and molecular liquids
- Nucleation
- Short-range order
- X-ray diffraction
- X-rays
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Ceramics and Composites
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Materials Chemistry