Phase-field simulation of solidification microstructure in Ni and Cu–Ni alloy using the Wheeler, Boettinger and McFadden model coupled with the CALPHAD data

Abstract This research article focuses on coupling the CALPHAD approach and the phase-field model for simulating dendritic solidification microstructure for Ni and Cu–Ni binary alloy. The unique feature of this work is to reformulate the governing equations of the Wheeler, Boettinger, and McFadden (WBM) model for usage of the CALPHAD data. Compared to the conventional WBM simulations where the liquid (L) and the fcc_a1( α ) phases are treated as ideal solutions, the current work can reflect the non-ideal behaviors of these phases according to the CALPHAD contribution. CALPHAD can contribute for the phase-field model to treat L and α as real solutions. This work also discusses the phase-field simulation for Ni, the feasibility of CALPHAD contribution for Ni simulation and numerical method to solve the governing equations for Ni and Cu–Ni alloy.