Eur. Phys. J. E (2020) 43: 48
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2020-11972-9

Regular Article

Effect of local composition-dependent interfacial anisotropy on dendritic growth orientation

¹ Department of Materials Engineering, The University of British Columbia, 309-6350 Stores Road, V6T 1Z4, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
² State Key Laboratory of Advanced Welding and Joining, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China
³ Department of Physics and Centre for the Physics of Materials, McGill University, H3A 2T8, Montreal, Canada

^* e-mail: leiwang1989@mail.nwpu.edu.cn
^** e-mail: laishan_yang@163.com

Received: 15 January 2020
Accepted: 29 June 2020
Published online: 22 July 2020

Abstract

Dendrites represent the complicated pattern formation in condensed matter physics and microstructures in materials science. Previous work shows that a dendrite can change its orientation due to a change in the anisotropy of solid-liquid interfacial energy. The anisotropy change is often assumed by the increase in the nominal composition. Here, we consider the case where the interfacial anisotropy changes with local composition at the interface rather than the nominal composition and examine its effect on dendritic growth morphology using phase-field simulations. The results are then discussed with respect to 〈110〉 side-arms formation in Al-Mg alloys and physical insights are provided.