Effect of different solute additions on dendrite morphology and orientation selection in cast binary magnesium alloys

Abstract In solidification, dendritic morphology was observed to change accordingly if either the type or quantity of the additional element was modified. To gain insight into this phenomenon, the 3D dendrite morphology of different binary magnesium alloys, including MgAl, MgBa, MgCa and MgZn alloys was characterized using synchrotron X-ray tomography and electron backscattered diffraction. Results showed that for most Mg-based alloys, the dendrite exhibited a typical 18-branch morphology with preferred growth orientations along 〈 11 2 ¯ 0 〉 and 〈 11 2 ¯ 3 〉 , whereas for MgZn alloys, the dendrite morphology would change from the 18-branch pattern to 12-branch if the Zn content increased, i.e. the so-called dendrite orientation transition (DOT) took place. This DOT behaviour of the Mg alloy dendrite was then successfully modelled using the 3D phase field method by changing the magnitude of related parameters in the specially formulated anisotropy function based on spherical harmonics.