Ultrasound cavitation induced nucleation in metal solidification: An analytical model and validation by real-time experiments

Haijun Huang; Ling Qin; Haibin Tang; Da Shu; Wentao Yan; Baode Sun; Jiawei Mi

doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2021.105832

Ultrasound cavitation induced nucleation in metal solidification: An analytical model and validation by real-time experiments

Ultrason Sonochem. 2021 Dec:80:105832. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2021.105832. Epub 2021 Nov 16.

Authors

Haijun Huang¹, Ling Qin², Haibin Tang³, Da Shu⁴, Wentao Yan⁵, Baode Sun⁶, Jiawei Mi⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials and Chemistry, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China; Shanghai Key Lab of Advanced High-temperature Materials and Precision Forming, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117575, Singapore.
² Department of Engineering, University of Hull, HU6 7RX, UK.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117575, Singapore; School of Intelligent Manufacturing, Nanjing University of Science & Technology, Nanjing 210094, China.
⁴ Shanghai Key Lab of Advanced High-temperature Materials and Precision Forming, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China. Electronic address: dshu@sjtu.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117575, Singapore; NUS Research Institute (NUSRI), Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123, China. Electronic address: mpeyanw@nus.edu.sg.
⁶ Shanghai Key Lab of Advanced High-temperature Materials and Precision Forming, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
⁷ Shanghai Key Lab of Advanced High-temperature Materials and Precision Forming, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Department of Engineering, University of Hull, HU6 7RX, UK. Electronic address: J.Mi@hull.ac.uk.

Abstract

Microstructural refinement of metallic alloys via ultrasonic melt processing (USMP) is an environmentally friendly and promising method. However, so far there has been no report in open literature on how to predict the solidified microstructures and grain size based on the ultrasound processing parameters.In this paper, an analytical model is developed to calculate the cavitation enhanced undercooling and the USMP refined solidification microstructure and grain size for Al-Cu alloys. Ultrafast synchrotron X-ray imaging and tomography techniques were used to collect the real-time experimental data for validating the model and the calculated results. The comparison between modeling and experiments reveal that there exists an effective ultrasound input power intensity for maximizing the grain refinement effects for the Al-Cu alloys, which is in the range of 20-45 MW/m². In addition, a monotonous increase in temperature during USMP has negative effect on producing new nuclei, deteriorating the benefit of microstructure refinement due to the application of ultrasound.

Keywords: Modelling; Nucleation of metal alloys; Ultrafast synchrotron X-ray imaging and tomography; Ultrasound Cavitation; Ultrasound melt processing.