Two-dimensional phase-field study of competitive grain growth during directional solidification of polycrystalline binary alloy

Selections of growing crystals during directional solidification of a polycrystalline binary alloy were numerically investigated using two-dimensional phase-field simulations. To accelerate the simulations, parallel graphics processing unit (GPU) simulations were performed using the GPU-rich supercomputer TSUBAME2.5 at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Twenty simulations with a combination of five sets of different seed orientation distributions and four different temperature gradients covering dendritic and cellular growth regions were performed. The unusual grain selection phenomenon, in which the unfavorably oriented grains preferentially grow instead of the favorably oriented grains, was observed frequently. The unusual selection was more remarkable in the cellular structure than in the dendritic structure.