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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

Dynamical solidification behaviors and microstructural

evolution during vibrating wavelike sloping plate process

R.G. Guan a,∗ , F.R. Cao a , L.Q. Chen b , J.P. Li b , C. Wang a

a Materials & Metallurgical College, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China
b State Key Lab. of Rolling and Automation, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A vibrating wavelike sloping plate process (VWSP) was proposed. Heat and solute trans-
Received 28 January 2008 formations, nucleation mechanism and grain growth as well as microstructure evolution
Received in revised form were investigated. It is shown that the sloping plate can provide strong undercooling, and a
15 April 2008 large quantity of heterogonous nuclei appear on the sloping plate surface, wavelike flow and
Accepted 7 June 2008 vibration can enable heterogonous nucleus to escape off the plate, which lead to nucleus
multiplication. Moreover, wavelike flow and vibration improve solute diffusion coefficient
and cause uniform solute and temperature field, which lead to eruptive nucleation. Grain
Keywords: growth has two typical ways, direct globular growth and dendritic growth. Under relative
Vibrating wavelike sloping plate uniform temperature and solute fields, some grains can keep stable growth surface, go on
Heat and solute transformations growing with the round surface and finally maintain their globular structure. However, there
Nucleation are always some grains that grow along a certain preferred direction, but under wavelike
Grain growth flow and vibration their dendritic arms break and transform into near spherical structure.
Microstructure evolution During the casting process, microstructural evolution from globular/dendritic structure to
globular/equiaxed structure and to globular structure was observed.
© 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction melting. During semisolid forming, the parameters such as

As an environmentally non-damaging industrial technology,
semisolid metal processing has been studied for more than
thirty years since the presentation by Flemmings and his
colleagues in 1971 (Flemmings, 1991; Sphencer et al., 1972).
Nowadays, it has already been applied to manufacture struc-
tural parts for automobile, electronics and so on. Semisolid
metal forming process includes two typical forming routes.
One is thixoforming, and the other is rheoforming. In the
first forming route, the semisolid billet prepared beforehand
is cut and re-melted to a semisolid temperature and then is
formed in the semisolid state. In the rheoforming, the slurry
is directly formed in the semisolid state, so it needs not re-
forming temperature, solid fraction and mould preheating
temperature should be controlled strictly. A short and conve-
nient process is favorable for industrial application, so many
scientists try to shorten and simplify the process, and some
near-net-shape technologies have been developed (Kirkwood,
1994; Haga, 2002; Fan, 2002). The sloping plate process was pro-
posed several years ago and is regarded as a new convenient
process for preparing semisolid alloy (Haga, 2002; Haga et al.,
2004). Many reports have described the effect of a flat cool-
ing plate on alloy microstructures (Guan et al., 2006a,b, 2007;
Kaufmann et al., 2002).
In addition, microstructure formation mechanism has
been studied for many years, but most studies usually adopt

∗
Corresponding author at: Box317, Materials & Metallurgical College, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China.
Tel.: +86 24 8368 1463; fax: +86 24 8368 4548.
E-mail address: guanrg@smm.neu.edu.cn (R.G. Guan).
0924-0136/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2008.06.007
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 9 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 2592–2601 2593

Fig. 1 – Schematic diagram of vibrating wavelike sloping

plate process for semisolid forming 1—thermal couple;
2—temperature controlling cabinet; 3—basement;
4—connecting vibrating system; 5—mechanical spring;
6—copper mould; 7—sloping plate; 8—heating element;
9—bakie; 10—pouring valve.
Fig. 2 – Melt temperature decreases from the upper to the
bottom on the sloping plate surface (along the arrow
direction).

cast in a water-cooled semi-continuous casting mould with

the method of theoretical calculation and experiments (Fan,
2002; Haga et al., 2004; Kaufmann et al., 2002). However, since
the apparatus for preparing semisolid alloy is complex and
closed, and the process happens in the dynamical process and
cannot be traced by available device, it is difficulty to study in
detail.
In this paper, the flat cooling plate was modified to vibrating
wavelike pattern, as shown in Fig. 1. Comparing to the sta-
tionary sloping plate, Vibrating Wavelike Sloping Plate (VWSP)
process has several advantages; firstly, it is convenient and low
cost to prepare high-quality slurry and billet, the microstruc-
tures of the billets prepared by the present process are much
finer. Secondly, that the solidification shell may remain on the
stationary plate surface can be effectively avoided. In addition,
by VWSP casting, it is easier to study dynamical solidification
behaviors and microstructure formation mechanism. There-
fore, the solidification behaviors, microstructure formation
and evolution during VWSP process shall be studied in this
paper.
2. Experimental
the diameter of Ø 120 mm.
When the sloping plate did not vibrate, the solidified shell
remaining on the plate was taken out for microstructure
observation. The sloping plate length was set at 200–640 mm
for preparing semisolid billets. The technological parameters,
such as casting temperature, sloping plate length, vibrating
amplitude and sloping angle were optimized by experiments.
The slurries on the sloping plate at different positions and
under different conditions were taken and quenched for
microstructure observation. Microstructure observation was
performed on an Olympus microscope. In order to analyze the
microstructure formation mechanism and element distribu-
tions, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) was also used in
the study.
3. Results and discussion
The whole solidification process during the present process
is complex. In order to analyze, it can be divided into two
key steps: nucleation and growth. These two steps are closely
related to the temperature and solute transformations under
vibration and wavelike flow.

3.1. Temperature and solute transformations under

Experiments were performed on an in-house designed setup,
vibration and wavelike flow
as shown in Fig. 1. The alloy temperature was controlled by
the thermal couple 1 and the temperature controlling cabinet
From macroscopic view, melt temperature distribution is not
2. At a certain temperature, pouring valve 10 was pulled out for
uniform. The melt temperatures were measured at different
casting. The sloping Plate 7 made from copper was designed
with a wavelike surface and could be heated by the heating
elements 8. During casting process, the sloping plate could
vibrate under the driving by vibrating system 4 and mechani-
cal spring 5.
The experimental materials were self-prepared Al–6Si–2Mg
(wt%) aluminum alloy with the solidus and liquidus of 557 ◦ C
and 615 ◦ C, respectively. The casting temperatures were set at
610–700 ◦ C. When the melted alloy was poured on the vibrating
wavelike sloping plate, it was stirred and cooled by the sloping Fig. 3 – Sketch of main heat diffusion direction of the
plate and gradually evolved to semisolid alloy, finally, it was micro-point variation.
2594 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 9 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 2592–2601

Fig. 4 – Stationary solidification microstructure of Al–6Si–2Mg alloy on the sloping plate surface (a) and dynamical
solidification microstructure of Al–6Si–2Mg alloy on the vibrating wavelike sloping plate (b) (arrows showing main heat
diffusion and grain grow directions).

positions from the entrance to the exit during the stable cast-
ing process. The test results show that the alloy temperature
decreases from the upper position to the exit of the plate along
the central line of the melt, as shown in Fig. 2.
However, to a certain micro-point unit of the melt, it is
cooled gradually from the upper position to the exit on the
sloping plate. This process is strongly affected by the wave-
like flow and vibrating, the micro-point can slip and rotate
in the unstable melt, and the heat diffusion direction is not
fixed, which will lead to uniform heat diffusion along every
direction, this kind of heat diffusion pattern provide suitable
conditions for fine and spherical grain formation.
In the micro-scale, the plate surface is flat, and the main
heat diffusion direction should be along the normal line of
the surface, as shown by the arrow in Fig. 3. When the plate
was laid on the horizontal ground, and the melt was dropped
on it, the microstructure of the solidification shell on the
interface of the plate and the melt shows the heat diffu-
sion direction, as show in Fig. 4(a). It is clearly seen that
the main dendritic trunk extends along the normal line to
the surface of the plate, indicating that the heat diffusion
direction is also along this line. Assuming that the micro-
point melt only can slip but not rotate; its movement can be
shown in Fig. 3, and its heat diffusion direction frequently
changes, as shown by arrows in Fig. 3, it is clearly seen that
the micro-point heat diffusion direction depends on the wave-
like shape and uniformly changes in the crest interval. So the
micro-solid particle can be uniformly cooled in every direc-
tion, which will enable it to keep stable spherical structure
during growth. Further more, the micro-point unit actually
cannot only slip but also rotate under wavelike flow and vibrat-
ing, in this case, during the slipping and spinning process,
the heat distribution on the surface of the micro-point unit
is even more uniform. So the solid particle can grow more
easily in globular style. This point of view can be proved
by present experiment. Due to lower casting temperature, a
solidification shell can be maintained on the sloping plate,
and the microstructure of the solidification shell on the inter-
face reveals random grain growth style, as shown in Fig. 4(b).
As compared with Fig. 4(a), it can be seen that the grain

Fig. 5 – Solute distributions of Al–6Si–2Mg alloy melt (below) at different positions on the sloping plate (above).
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Fig. 6 – Outline of dynamical solidification process during VWSP process.

growth direction is not along the normal line of the plate
surface any more, equiaxed grains remain on the plate. So
under the wavelike flow and vibrating, the uniform heat diffu-
sion in every direction provides stable conditions for globular
growth.
Fig. 5 shows the solute distribution of Al–6Si–2Mg alloy
melt at different positions on the sloping plate. Comparing
the solute distributions at different positions on the sloping
plate, it is seen that the solute field is relatively uniform, there
is only a little solute variation from the entrance to the exit of

Fig. 7 – Quenching microstructure comparison between original melt and slurry on the plate (a) 610 ◦ C, direct quenching; (b)
660 ◦ C, direct quenching; (c) 610 ◦ C, on the sloping plate; (d) 660 ◦ C, on the sloping plate.
2596 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 9 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 2592–2601
the sloping plate. Possible reason is that the wavelike flow and
vibrating can improve the solute diffusion coefficient.
During VWSP casting process, high solute diffusion coef-
ficient improved by wavelike flow and vibration can lead to
homogenous solute and temperature distributions. Strong
convection induced by complex flow can transmit the solute
everywhere, the solute segregation during solidification is
greatly reduced, so the solute distributes uniformly from the
entrance to exit of the sloping plate. The uniform temperature
and solute distributions induced by VWSP will lead to eruptive
nucleation of the micro-point melt and globular growth of the
solid particle.
3.2. Nucleation and multiplication
Some research papers (Haga, 2002; Kaufmann et al., 2002)
discussed the nucleation mechanism during the flat slop-
ing plate process, and believed that the fine and spherical
microstructure is due to the formation of a large number
of heterogonous nuclei on the cooling sloping plate. These
studies did not provide enough data for this deduction. Actu-
ally, the microstructure formation is not only related to the
heterogonous nucleation but also related to the dynamical
solidification behaviors of the alloy. In the present study on
VWSP process, dynamical solidification behaviors related to
the microstructure formation have to be carefully consid-
ered. It is proved that the microstructure formation follow
Fig. 8 – Nucleation rate of Al–6Si–2Mg alloy at different casting temperatures (a) 610 ◦ C; (b) 620 ◦ C; (c) 640 ◦ C; (d) 660 ◦ C.
the routes as shown in Fig. 6. It is believed that three mech-
anisms devote to nucleus formation, namely heterogonous
nucleation, eruptive nucleation and nucleus multiplication.
During VWSP casting process, heterogonous nucleation
firstly appears on the sloping plate surface and eruptive
nucleation takes place in the whole melt. The cooling plate
can provide enough cooling intensity for heterogonous and
eruptive nucleation. Fig. 7 shows the nucleation capability
comparison of the melts in the crucible or on the sloping plate
surface. Obviously, the grain size of the quenched melt taken
from the sloping plate surface is much finer than that from
the crucible, the microstructure of the quenched melt in the
crucible is mainly composed of big dendrites while that of the
quenched alloy taken from the sloping plate surface contains
fine spherical structures and a part of dendrites, which means
that original melt on the sloping plate contains much more
nuclei than that in the crucible. So the sloping plate can pro-
vide very strong undercooling and cause a large quantity of
nuclei to form, which creates fundamental conditions for fine
spherical grain formation.
The strong undercooling for nucleation is provided by the
cooling plate. As mentioned above, while the melt gradu-
ally flows down along the sloping plate, wavelike flow and
vibration can improve the diffusion coefficient and accelerate
the element diffusion velocity, which causes solute distribu-
tion to be more homogenous, At the same time, the melt in
different places on the sloping plate is mixed due to wave-
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 9 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 2592–2601
Fig. 9 – Experimental curve between casting temperature
and grain quantity per mm2 .
like flow and vibration, and homogenous temperature field
in the melt is formed. In this case, when critical conditions
for nucleation are achieved, the uniform solute and temper-
ature distributions can cause eruptive nucleation. When the
low temperature melt was directly rapidly cooled by the cool-
ing plate, the eruptive nucleation would take place and finally
result in fine spherical grains, as shown in Fig. 8. This phe-
nomenon is similar to the VWSP process, the whole melt was
placed in the undercooling conditions, when it was quenched,
the nuclei have little chance to grow, fine globular grains with
sizes of 5–20 ␮m were maintained. This behavior is also proved
in some similar studies (Ji, 2003; Nastac and Stefannescu, 1996;
Van and Mischgofsky, 1982).
In above two mechanisms, undercooling is an important
factor that influences the nucleation rate, low casting temper-
ature will provide enough undercooling period for improving
nucleation rate. Fig. 9 shows the relationship of VWSP casting
temperatures and grain numbers per 0.01 mm2 (grain density
in two dimensional plane), and Fig. 10 shows the theoretical
curve between nucleation rate and undercooling calculated
by homogenous nucleation rate equation at wetting angle of
Fig. 11 – Nucleus multiplication.
2597
Fig. 10 – Theoretical curve between nucleation rate I and
undercooling T (wetting angle is 5◦ ).
5◦ . The grain densities in Fig. 9 reflect the nucleus densities
of the original melt. It is proximately considered that they
have a linearly proportion relationship. In this case, it can be
found that the nucleus density decreases with the increase
of the pouring temperature, the experimental results agree
with the curve of nucleation rate and undercooling calculated
by classical theory. Comparing with each other, they demon-
strate similar rule, that is, as casting temperature decreases
or undercooling increases, grain size decreases or nucleation
rate increases.
During the VWSP process, nucleus multiplication also
devote to fine and spherical grain formation, as shown in
Fig. 11. If the sloping plate is stationary and convection or
metal flow almost do not exist, the heterogeneous nuclei will
appear on the plate surface and will extend further till they
contact each other, finally, there will remain a solidification
shell. However, if the sloping plate vibrates and the melt flows
on it, lots of nuclei forming on the plate surface will escape
off and disperse in the whole melt, which will greatly improve
the quantity of the effective nucleus and eventually cause fine
2598 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 9 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 2592–2601

Fig. 12 – Relationships between pouring (casting)

temperature and grain size as well as grain roundness.

Fig. 13 – Microstructure of quenched Al–6Si–2Mg alloy melt

take from the middle of sloping plate during stable 680 ◦ C
and spherical solid structure formation. This behavior called
casting process, which shows the direct globular growing
nucleus multiplication may be found by comparing Fig. 4(a)
microstructure.
and (b). Nucleus multiplication is also an important nucleus
source that contributes to fine globular grain formation.
The effective nucleus density will determine the final grain
size and microstructure. So it is very important to improve the down under heat flux can take place easily, and this behavior
effective nucleus density as high as possible. Fig. 12 shows the can be observed in Fig. 14 and in Fig. 15 by SEM element analy-
relationship of pouring temperature with grain size as well as sis. The vibration and metal flow accelerate the dendritic arm
roundness of the final cast billet, it is seen that the grain size broken, as shown in Fig. 14. Dendritic arm fragments can grow
increases with the increase of the pouring temperature. So the further and evolve into spherical grains.
pouring temperature should be kept at a low level. However, The two growth ways can be observed in the quenched
to consider the cast ability of the alloy, the pouring temper- microstructures of flowing melt taken from the wavelike
ature should not be too low as the alloy flow ability and cast sloping plate surface, and microstructure evolution from glob-
ability become worse when the solid fraction is too high at low ular/dendritic structure to globular/equiaxed structure and
temperatures. The solidification shell remained on the slop- to globular structure was observed, as shown in Fig. 16. So
ing plate surface will cause the cooling intensity to decrease, during whole evolution process, globular growth and spheri-
which will finally bring about relatively big grains in the billet. cal grains exist all along from the beginning to the last, and
Under current experimental conditions, proper casting tem- the dendritic arm broken and globalizing take place. Fine and
perature range of 660–680 ◦ C for preparing semisolid billet of spherical microstructures completely form at the exit of the
Al–6Si–2Mg (wt%) alloy is suggested. sloping plate in the two ways. Vibrating and metal flow can
cause stirring, simultaneously accelerate eutectic composi-
3.3. Grain growth and microstructure evolution tion aggregation between dendritic arms and then induce
dendritic arm fragmentation. Fig. 15 shows eutectic element
As shown in Fig. 6, there are two grain growth ways, that
is, direct globular growth and dendritic growth. It is found
through the experiment that the solid structure can grow
directly in a globular pattern, as shown in Fig. 13. Such growth
style was also found in some other studies (Fan, 2002; Guan et
al., 2006a,b); however, it is worth remarking that the happen-
ing conditions for this behavior are quite different. Generally,
it is considered that the direct globular growth can take place
under the conditions that the melt is strongly sheared, e.g.,
two screw stirring process, Shearing Cooling Roll (SCR) pro-
cess (Fan, 2002; Guan et al., 2006a,b). However, in the present
study, there is no strong shear, the direct globular growth still
exist. So the basic reason that causes direct globular growth
is not the shear, the solute and temperature distributions are
the essential reasons that determine grain growth ways.
Another growth style, dendritic growth and then den-
dritic arm broken were also observed. Since Al–6Si–2Mg alloy
contains high level silicon elements, the aggregation of low
melting point solute at dendritic arm root which may neck Fig. 14 – Dendritic arm root necking.
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 9 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 2592–2601 2599

Fig. 15 – Composition distributions in the microstructure of the shell of Al–6Si–2Mg (wt%) alloy.

Si aggregation along dendritic arms in the Al–6Si–2Mg (wt%)
alloy, which tends to cause dendritic arm fracture at the posi-
tion A. Dendrite fragments grow as seed crystals and lead to
fine and spherical grain formation. Vibrating amplitude can
greatly affect the microstructures of the alloys. As shown in
Fig. 17(a)–(c), microstructure becomes finer with the increase
of the vibrating amplitude. However, when the amplitude is
larger than 1.6 mm, this effect is not obvious, as shown in
Fig. 17(d). At a certain scope, the amplitude is larger; the vibra-
tion is stronger, so more dendritic debris can form easily and
mixture with the slurry, which finally leads to the formation of
finer microstructure. But it was observed that when the ampli-

Fig. 16 – Quenching microstructure evolution of Al–6Si–2Mg melts at different positions on the sloping plate when casting at
680 ◦ C (a) upper; (b) middle; (c) bottom.
2600 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 9 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 2592–2601
Fig. 17 – Central microstructures of semisolid billets of Al–6Si–2Mg (wt%) alloy cast at 690 ◦ Cand at different amplitudes (a)
0 mm; (b) 1.5 mm; (c) 1.6 mm; (d) 2.2 mm.
tude was larger than 1.6 mm, the slurry splashed off the plate
and the refining effect was not obvious, as shown in Fig. 17(d).
The reasonable amplitude is suggested to be below 2 mm.
4. Summary
(1) A vibrating wavelike sloping plate process (VWSP) was
proposed. It is shown that the sloping plate can provide
strong undercooling, and a large quantity of heterogonous
nuclei appear on the sloping plate surface, wavelike flow
and vibration can enable heterogonous nucleus to escape
off the plate, which will lead to nucleus multiplication.
Wavelike flow and vibration improve solute diffusion coef-
ficient and bring about uniform solute and temperature
field, which lead to eruptive nucleation.
(2) Grain growth has two typical ways, direct globular growth
and dendritic growth. Under relative uniform temperature
and solute fields, some grains keep stable growth surface,
go on growing with round surface and finally maintain
their globular structure. However, there are always some
grains growing along a certain preferred direction, but
under wavelike flow and vibration their dendritic arms
break and transform into near spherical structure.
(3) During the casting process, microstructure evolution from
globular/dendritic structure to globular/equiaxed struc-
ture and to globular structure was observed.
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by National High-tech
R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2007AA03Z111) and The
Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50604007).
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