Large-scale phase-field studies of three-dimensional dendrite competitive growth at the converging grain boundary during directional solidification of a bicrystal binary alloy

Large-scale phase-field studies of three-dimensional (3D) dendrite competitive growth at the converging grain boundary (GB) of a bicrystal binary alloy were carried out using the GPU-rich supercomputer TSUBAME 2.5 at Tokyo Institute of Technology. First, a series of thin-sample simulations were performed to investigate the effects of thin-sample thickness, unfavorably oriented (UO) grain inclination angle, and dendrite arrangement on an unusual overgrowth phenomenon whereby the favorably oriented (FO) grain is overgrown by the UO grain. It was concluded that the unusual overgrowth easily occurs as the thickness of the thin sample and the UO grain inclination angle decrease. It was also concluded that the interaction between FO and UO dendrites at the converging GB depends on the dendrite arrangement for relatively large dendrite spacing. Next, realistic large-scale simulations whereby multiple dendrites interact at the converging GB were performed. Unusual overgrowth was also observed in such large-scale simulations, and this phenomenon easily occurred at smaller UO dendrite inclination angles. Furthermore, it was also concluded that the FO and UO dendrites rearrange toward a space-to-face interaction. Because the interaction between FO and UO dendrites differs according to the location on the GB, a zigzag GB was formed, especially at small UO grain inclination angles.