Effects of Solidification Conditions on Grain Refinement Capacity of TiC in Directionally Solidified Ti6Al4V Alloy

Abstract In this study, the effects of solidification conditions on the grain refinement capacity of heterogeneous nuclei TiC in directionally solidified Ti6Al4V alloy were investigated using experimental and numerical approaches. Ti6Al4V powder with and without TiC particles in a Ti6Al4V sheath was melted and directionally solidified at various solidification rates via the floating zone melting method. In addition, by using the phase field method, the microstructural evolution of directionally solidified Ti6Al4V was simulated by varying the temperature gradient G and solidification rate V . As the solidification rate increased, the increment of the prior β grain number by TiC addition also increased. There are two reasons for this: first, the amount of residual potent heterogeneous nuclei TiC is larger. Second, the amount of TiC particles that can nucleate becomes larger. This is because increasing the constitutional undercooling Δ T c leads to the activation of a smaller radius of heterogeneous nuclei and a higher nucleation probability from each radius. At a cooling rate R higher than that in the floating zone melting experiment ( R = 3 to 1000 K/s), the maximum degree of constitutional undercooling Δ T c,Max has a peak value, which suggests that constitutional undercooling Δ T c has a smaller contribution at higher cooling rates, such as those that occur during electron beam melting (EBM), including laser powder bed fusion (LPBF).