Solidification

Dr. Muhammad Riaz Bhatti

Contents
Introduction to Solidification What Happens When You Cool a Molten Metal Solidification of a metals Metallic Structures Control of Solidification Impurity atoms along the grain boundaries Single crystals Crystal Imperfections

Modification of grain size

Mechanism of Solidification Latent heat of fusion Cooling curve Nucleation Crystal growth 25/03/2012 of crystallization Process
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Macro-defects in Castings
How to control the shrinkage Segregation

Hot tears
Casting Design Hints Ingot characteristics of various types of steel 2

What Happens When You Cool a Molten Metal?

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Solidification of a metals
Liquid metal solidifies when cooled (except mercury) Minute nuclei (crystals) of a solid form when a pure, molten metal is cooled to just below its freezing temperature. Impurities in the molten material provide the centre for growth for the nuclei.

All metals (except mercury) are solid at room temperature.

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Mechanism of Solidification
Three major things happen when a casting solidifies:

Grains are formed,

melt chemistry changes during freezing, and shrinkage occurs.

The formation of dendrites and grains is important because they affect properties.
Dendrites may start to form on a cold surface of a mold. They may start to grow from impurities, or they may nucleate at random.
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Cooling curve

Time-Temperature curve for an alloy & a pure metal

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Solidification / Crystallization
Crystallization is the transition from the liquid to the solid state.
This occurs in two stages:
Nuclei formation Crystal growth

Formation of Crystals
Nucleation - The first unit cell solidifies Growth - New unit cells attach to existing unit cells. Where crystals meet grain boundaries are created.

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Nucleation
When the temperature of the liquid metal drops sufficiently below its freezing point, stable nuclei appear spontaneously at various points in the liquid. These nuclei, which have now solidified, act as centers for further crystallization. As cooling continues, more atoms tend to freeze, and they attach themselves to already existing nuclei or form new nuclei of their own. Each nucleus grows by the attraction of atoms from the liquid into its space lattice.
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Crystal growth
Crystal growth continues in three dimensions, atoms attach themselves in certain preferred directions This forms treelike structure, called dendrite. Since each nucleus is formed by chance, the crystal axes are pointed at random and the dendrites grow in different directions in each crystal.
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Crystal growth

Casting with columnar grains

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Dendrite of Antimony

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Grain formation
As the amount of liquid decreases, the gaps between the arms of the dendrite will be filled and the growth of the dendrite will mutually obstructed by that of its neighbors. This leads to a very irregular external shape.

The area along which crystals meet / interfere,

known as the grain boundary.

Modification of grain size

The rate of cooling and the amount of impurities in the molten metal will affect grain size: Gradual cooling - a few nuclei are formed large grain size

Rapid cooling - many nuclei formed - small grain size.

Reheating a solid metal / alloy allows the grain structure to re-align itself. Directional cooling in a structure is achieved by selectively cooling one area of a solid. 25/03/2012 WEC

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Modification of grain size

The effect of impurities (or additives) in a molten metal can induce a large number of fine grains that will give a stronger and harder metal (e.g., Al in steel). This addition must be carefully controlled as too many impurities may cause an accumulation at the grain boundaries, which will weaken the material.
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Impurity atoms along the grain boundaries

Last liquid solidifies generally along the grain boundaries & there tends to be a higher concentration of impurity atoms in that area

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Presence of impurities/Shrinkage cavities

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Process of crystallization

Figure shows schematically the process of 25/03/2012 WEC crystallization from nuclei to the final grains.

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Macrodefects in Castings

Macrodefects in Castings
Large solidification defects which are visible to the naked eye are known as macrodefects. The most common macrodefects are
shrinkage cavities,
segregation and porosity.

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Macrodefects in Castings
Shrinkage cavities: Liquid metals undergo a contraction in volume due to

solidification (upto 6 percent).

In a properly designed mold, with provision for liquid supply to the portion that solidifies last, the

contraction in volume presents no serious problem. If, the entire exterior of the casting should solidify first,

the decrease in volume of the interior during

solidification results in a large shrinkage cavity at the
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mid-section.

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Solidification Shrinkage
Shrinkage - the degree, size, and location of shrinkage defects is dependent on the type of solidification of the alloy. For castings, it can be corrected with risers
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The gate area freezes prematurely preventing the flow of molten to the heavy center section of the casting

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Macrodefects in Castings
In the solidification of steel ingots, the shrinkage cavity, called pipe, is usually concentrated in the top central portion of the ingot. This portion is cut off and discarded before working.
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Micro-Shrinkage cavities
(commonly occurs in dendritic and equiaxed) growth types)

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How to control the shrinkage?

What can be done about solidification shrinkage voids? The best solution is to design the casting so that gates and risers are the last areas to solidify. This is easier said than done. Progressive foundries use computer heat-transfer models to ensure that castings solidify in this manner.
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How to control the shrinkage ?

The ideal solidification - metal first freezes at the bottom of the mold and continues upward to a riser at the top; To minimize the formation of shrinkage cavities, abrupt changes in thickness and combinations of

heavy and light sections should be

avoided.
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How to control the shrinkage ?

Use of riser - If the casting does have heavy sections, they should be designed with risers at the top to supply liquid metal during solidification. Use of chills - Heavy sections should be cast uppermost in the mold, and chills may be used in the sand adjacent to the slow-cooling parts.
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Macrodefects in Castings
Porosity or blowholes occur whenever gases are trapped in the casting.

Metals dissolve considerable gas, higher concentration in liquid than solid.

On solidification, gas bubbles form and are trapped by surrounding solid metal Gases may also be produced by reaction of the liquid metal with volatile substances, such as moisture, in the mold.

They are usually more numerous and smaller than shrinkage cavities and are in rounded form.
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Macrodefects in Castings
Porosity can be reduced by proper venting of the mold, and by not unduly compacting the sand Use of coating / dry mould

Avoiding superheating the melt

Use of preheated ferro-alloy addition Ensure smooth flow of metal into the mould cavity
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Turbulent flow causes gas to be trapped

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Macrodefects in Castings

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Hot tears
Hot tears are cracks due to heavy shrinkage strains set up in the solid casting just after solidification. Cause
failure of the sand mold to collapse and allow the casting to contract. Hot tears may also result from the non-uniform cooling conditions that give rise to shrinkage cavities.

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Proper design of the casting will minimize the danger of hot tears.
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Hot tears

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Segregation & its types

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Casting Design Hints

Many casting problems are related to design

The designer should try to predict how the metal may feed into the mold to make the desired shape.
Feed paths should be as uniform in crosssectional area as possible.

Thin sections connected to heavy sections lead to casting stresses and solidification voids.
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Ingot characteristics of various types of steel

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Crystal Imperfections

Crystal Imperfections
The most important imperfections are
vacancies, interstitials, and dislocations.

crystal

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Crystal Imperfections
Vacancies are simply empty atom sites. By successive jumps of atoms, it is possible for a vacancy to move in the lattice structure and therefore play an important part in diffusion of atoms through the lattice. Vacancies are not only present as a result of solidification but can also be produced by raising the temperature or by irradiation with fast-moving nuclear particles.
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Crystal Imperfections

Note: the atoms surrounding a vacancy tend to be closer together, distorting the
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Contd..

Crystal Imperfections

Interstitials tend to push the surrounding atoms farther apart and also produce distortion of the lattice planes. Interstitial atoms may be produced by the severe local distortion during plastic deformation as well as by irradiation.

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Crystal Imperfections
A dislocation, a disturbed region between two substantially perfect parts of a crystal. Two types:
edge dislocation - consists of an extra half plane of
atoms in the crystal. screw dislocation - because of the spiral surface formed by the atomic planes around the screw dislocation line.

The dislocation line produces compressive stress below the dislocation and tensile stresses above it and a disturbed region in the lattice structure.
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Dislocation

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Thanks

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Mechanism of Solidification
A dendrite becomes a grain when solidification is complete. It is not really understood why dendrites are nature's way of crystal growth, but the fact that they occur needs little documentation. Anyone who has watched frost form on a window in the winter sees a dendritic, treelike crystal growth.

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Mechanism of Solidification
If dendrites grow on the mold wall, a columnar casting structure may be obtained. If the dendrites form randomly, the casting will have random grains. If the casting solidifies very slowly, coarse grains will occur. Usually, the coarse grains and columnar

grains

are

undesirable

because

they

make

mechanical properties directional. Sometimes an oriented structure is desired. For example, turbine blades are directionally solidified to get columnar grains in the long direction. In most situations this
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is undesirable.

Metallic Structures
This crystalline structure gives metals their properties (strength, stiffness, ductility, conductivity & toughness). Each dendrite grows in a geometric pattern consistent with the lattice structure until each one touches its neighbour. At this point the dendrites begin to thicken to form a totally solid grain of metal. Each grain having the same structure but a different orientation. The grain boundary is a narrow zone in which the atoms are not properly spaced according to the lattice structure.
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Solidification Mechanism
conceptual explanation

Solidification
When temperature of metal is decreased, the motions of atoms are less vigorous and the attractive forces pull them closer together until the liquid solidifies. Materials contract upon solidification, indicating a closer packing of atoms in the solid state. The atoms in the solid are not stationary but are vibrating around fixed points, giving rise to the orderly arrangement of crystal structures.
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Contd
potential energy.

Solidification

Atoms in a material have both kinetic energy and Kinetic energy is related to the speed at which the atoms move and is strictly a function of temperature. The higher the temperature, the more active are the atoms and the greater is their kinetic energy. On the other hand, Potential energy is related to the distance between

atoms.
The greater the average distance between atoms, the greater is their potential energy.
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Latent heat of fusion

Pure metal at its freezing point has same temperature for both the liquid and solid states. The kinetic energy of the atoms in the liquid and the solid must be the same, but there is a significant difference in potential energy. The atoms in the solid are much closer together, so solidification occurs with a release of energy. This difference in potential energy between the liquid and solid states is known as the latent heat of fusion. WEC 25/03/2012 50

Cooling curve
Energy is required to establish a surface between the solid and liquid. In pure materials at the freezing point, insufficient energy is released by the heat of fusion to create a stable boundary and some undercooling is always necessary to form stable nuclei.
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Cooling curve
Subsequent release of the heat of fusion raises the temperature to the freezing point. The amount of undercooling required is reduced by the presence of solid impurities, which reduce the amount of surface energy required.
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Ingot characteristics of various types of steel

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