Quatification of primary phase undercooling of rapidly solidified droplets with 3D microtomography

Abstract : Powders of different compositions of Al-Cu alloys were atomized in helium and nitrogen and the microstructure of the atomized droplets was examined using X-ray micro-tomography. A method was developed to remove X-ray artifacts and background noise from the particles images. The method developed involves creating a clean mask file using MATLAB image toolbox, followed by applying the mask file to the original image to achieve clean images for the particle of interest. Separate features of interest in the droplets, such as region of initial growth and primary dendrites, were investigated at the various stages of solidification. The data is used to estimate the primary phase undercooling of the droplets, which will be used in a solidification model as an input to estimate the phase fractions. The results will then be compared with the experimental results