Numerical simulation of multiple seeds interaction during three-dimensional dendritic solidification with fluid flow

Abstract

Most material of engineering interest undergoes solidification process from liquid to solid state which governs the microstructure of materials. Identifying the growth characteristic of the microstructure during the solidification process is essential to determine the physical properties of final product. Numerical simulation can provide valuable information during solidification process since heat and mass transfer associated with micro-structural growth of dendrite is in greatly small scale which is almost impossible to obtain by experiments. In real situations, dendrite tends to grow from multiple seeds as well as with external fluid flow. Growth characteristics of the dendrites will be greatly influenced by both external fluid convection and interaction between dendrites. In this paper, three-dimensional numerical simulation of multiple dendritic growth during solidification process with melt fluid convection is presented. The high-order Level Contour Reconstruction Method(LCRM), a hybrid form of Front-Tracking and Level-Set, is used to track the moving liquid-solid interface explicitly and sharp interface technique has been used to implement correct phase changing boundary conditions on the moving interface. To get the indicator function and the interface curvature more efficiently and accurately for three-dimensional simulation, we have generated the distance function directly from the interface. The method is validated by comparing with other numerical technique and showed good agreements. Three-dimensional results showed clear difference compared to two-dimensional simulation on growth behavior, especially with multiple seeds. Copyright © 2009 by ASME.