Two- and three- dimensional studies of dendritic morphology in magnesium alloy by means of synchrotron X-ray microtomography and cellular automaton modelling

摘要

Magnesium is the lightest structural material. As one of the dominant microstructure features, dendritic pattern determines the mechanical behaviour and performance of magnesium alloys. Dendritic topological observation was carried out on Mg-based alloy using synchrotron X-ray micro-tomography and the microstructure pattern of α-Mg dendrite was obtained. It was found that the a-Mg dendrite grew with eighteen primary stems, of which six lay in the (0001) basal plane, and the other twelve in the (1010) plane. An according numerical model based on the cellular automata method was developed. By defining a specific capturing functional mechanism, simulation of a-Mg dendrite in 3-D with eighteen branches was successfully achieved. The simulation results show that the model could reasonably describe the evolution of the dendritic microstructure and the subsequent dendrite morphology agrees well with that observed in the synchrotron X-ray tomography experiment.