On the Role of Dilute Solute Additions on Growth Restriction in Binary Copper Alloys

The effect of dilute solute additions on growth restriction in binary Cu alloys has been assessed at different degrees of superheat. Columnar grain length values from Northcott’s work (Northcott in J Inst Metals 62:101-136, 1938) for binary Cu alloys were plotted against the corresponding undercooling parameter (P), the reciprocal of the conventional (Qconv.) and true (Qtrue) growth restriction factor (Schmid-Fetzer and Kozlov in Acta Mater 59(15):6133-6144, 2011) values. It was found that there was no correlation between the columnar grain length values and P, 1/Qconv. and 1/Qtrue values for different solutes and cast at the same degree of superheat. Unlike P, Qconv., and Qtrue values, the heuristic growth restriction parameter (β) (Fan et al. in Acta Mater 152, 248-257, 2018) modeling framework in conjunction with the critical solute content (C*) for growth restriction fitted well to binary Cu alloys.