Modeling of marangoni-induced droplet motion and melt convection during solidification of hypermonotectic alloys

A two-phase volume averaging approach to model Marangoni-induced droplet motion of the minority liquid phase and the convection in the parent melt during solidification of the hypermonotectic alloys is presented. The minority liquid phase decomposed from the parent melt as droplets in the miscibility gap was treated as the second-phase L ₂. The parent melt including the solidified monotectic matrix was treated as the first phase L ₁. Both phases were considered as different and spatially interpenetrating continua. The conservation equations of mass, momentum, solute, and enthalpy for both phases, and an additional transport equation for the droplet density, were solved. Nucleation of the L ₂ droplets, diffusion-controlled growth, interphase interactions such as Marangoni force at the L ₁-L ₂ interface, Stokes force, solute partitioning, and heat release of decomposition were taken into account by corresponding source and exchange terms in the conservation equations. The monotectic reaction was modeled by adding the latent heat on the L ₁ phase during monotectic reaction, and applying an enlarged viscosity to the solidified monotectic matrix. A two-dimensional (2-D) square casting with hypermonotectic composition (Al-10 wt pct Bi) was simulated. This paper focused on Marangoni motion, hence gravity was not included. Results with nucleation, droplet evolution, Marangoni-induced droplet motion, solute transport, and macrosegregation formation were obtained and discussed.