Abstract
? 2022 Elsevier B.V.The present lays emphasis on the effect of varying degrees of undercooling on the microstructure development of the Fe50Cu50 alloy system. A sufficiently high undercooling (>100 °C) was achieved using the aerodynamic levitation (ADL) technique whereas a W-wire holding method in the same ADL setups was employed to attain relatively low undercooling (87 °C) during solidification. In addition, solidification experiments were also performed without any undercooling in this alloy system. Thus, the effect of a wide range of undercooling on the phase separation and microstructural development of the Fe-Cu system was systematically investigated in this work. In a substantially undercooled ADL sample, a complete phase-separated micrograph was obtained, but in other situations, a discontinuous network of Cu in interconnected Fe dendritic areas was detected as determined by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). X-ray diffraction (XRD) of the sample cross-section confirms that the phases present at the end of the solidification process are α-Fe and Cu, regardless of the degree of undercooling. In the instance of the ADL sample, the entrapment of Cu droplets in the inter-connected Fe dendritic area due to a combination of high undercooling and centrifugal force was detected using X-ray tomography, and the orientation distribution of the samples was determined using Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD).
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Elsevier