Quantification and classification of microstructures in ternary eutectic alloys using 2-point spatial correlations and principal component analyses

Eutectic solidification gives rise to a number of distinct microstructure patterns that might include lamella, rods and labyrinths in binary alloys. However, as the number of phases and components increases, the number of possible patterns that might be obtained during bulk solidification also become larger. While the morphological attributes of binary eutectic solidification have been fairly well understood, the same is not true for ternary and higher multicomponent alloys. In this paper, we study and quantify microstructures in ternary alloys as a function of two essential parameters, namely, the volume fraction of the solid phases and the surface energies of the interfaces (in particular the solid liquid interfaces). For the selected ensemble of microstructures, quantification and classification were carried out using a recently developed data-driven (objective) approach based on principal component analyses of 2-point correlations. It is demonstrated that the method is capable of analyzing and quantifying the similarity/difference measures between the elements of the selected ensemble of microstructures. (C) 2016 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.