Analysis of a Microgravity Solidification Experiment for Columnar to Equiaxed Transitions with Modeling Results

This paper studies the Columnar to Equiaxed Transition (CET) in an Al-7wt%Si binary alloy with and without Al-Ti-B grain refiner. A microgravity experiment was designed to produce a CET in this alloy system. The experiment was flown onboard the MAXUS-7 sounding rocket platform, which achieved twelve minutes of microgravity. Examples of CET were successfully produced during the unmanned flight. Temperature data were recorded from thermocouples in the crucible walls of the furnace. Post-mortem material characterization of the grain structure was also performed. Subsequently a model of the furnace, which used a front-tracking model of solidification and an inverse heat calculation method, was developed. In this paper, results from the model are compared to the experimental findings; agreement is found with the CET predictions. The results from the model are then used to compare findings with the CET criterion of Hunt from the literature. Agreement is found between the model predictions and the Hunt criterion.