Texture formation and grain boundary characteristic ofAl-4.5Cu alloys directionally solidified under high magnetic field

Directional solidification of Al-4.5Cu alloy refined by adding Al-5Ti-1B has been carried out to investigate the texture formation and grain boundary characteristic of the paramagnetic crystal under a high magnetic field. OM and EBSD were applied to analyze the microstructures solidified at different temperature gradients (G) and magnetic field intensities (B). The results show that at the temperature gradient of 27 K/cm, the orientations of fcc α-Al grains without magnetic field are random. However, as a high magnetic field is imposed, the easy magnetization axes<310> of the α-Al grains are aligned parallel to the direction of the magnetic field leading to <310> texture. Meanwhile, the ratio of coincidence site lattice (CSL) grain boundaries increases with the increment of magnetic field intensity and reaches its maximum value at 4 T, but decreases as the magnetic field enhances further. On the other hand, when the temperature gradient is elevated, columnar dendrite morphology is exhibited without magnetic field; while a 6 T high magnetic field is introduced, the columnar dendrites are broken and equiaxed grains of random orientations are obtained. The alignment behavior of the free crystals in melt could be attributed to the magnetic crystalline anisotropy of α-Al. Moreover, the influence of fluid flow on the texture formation and CSL grain boundary development under magnetic field is discussed. The absence of convection is benefit for grain reorientation and CSL boundary formation. The application of high static magnetic field will inhibit the macro-scale convection. However, the interaction between thermoelectric current and magnetic field will cause micro-scale fluid flow, i.e., thermoelectric magnetic convection (TEMC). The TEMC will give rise to perturbation near the solid-liquid interface leading to the appearance of freckles as well as the decreasing of the ratio of CSL boundary. Moreover, it is proposed that the formation of CSL boundary is associated with the rotation of the free grains in melt along specific crystallographic axes by magnetic torque.