Interdendritic Spacing: Part I. Experimental Studies

Directional solidification experiments have been carried out in a succinonitrile-5.5 mol pct acetone system to characterize dendrite tip radius and interdendrite spacings as functions of growth rate and temperature gradient in the liquid. A maximum in primary dendrite spacing as a function of growth rate is observed, and this maximum is found to occur at the dendrite-cellular transition velocity. A scaling law is shown to exist between the secondary dendrite arm spacing, λ₂, near the tip and the dendrite tip radius, p, which is λ₂/ρ = 2.2 ± 0.3. Experimental results on ρ have been found to agree with the theoretical model based on the marginal stability criterion. This paper is based on a presentation made at the symposium “Establishment of Microstructural Spacing during Dendritic and Cooperative Growth” held at the annual meeting of the AIME in Atlanta, Georgia on March 7, 1983 under the joint sponsorship of the ASM-MSD Phase Transformations Committee and the TMS-AIME Solidification Committee.