Dendrite growth directions and morphology in the directional solidification of anisotropic materials

This study has experimentally determined the growth direction and the morphology of dendrites in a thin sample of succinonitrile alloy in configurations where the heat flow direction differs from the preferred crystalline orientations. A large data set has been obtained over a range of growth velocity, dendrite spacing, and misorientation angle between the two directions. Data analysis has provided evidence of an internal symmetry from which the expression of the orientational response of dendrites to the growth conditions has been identified. This has been complemented by the identification of a new dendrite scale, more relevant than the dendrite spacing to the present issue. Altogether, these results provide new insights on the growth direction and the morphology of dendrites that could be applied to more practical configurations.