Morphological Instability in Early Stages of Solidification of Pure Metals Part I: A Theoretical Model

Abstract

A simple one dimensional model has been introduced to investigate the morphological instability observed in many solidification processes. It is shown that the solidified shell material with higher thermal conductivity might result in planar shell growth, whereas the mold material with higher thermal conductivity may cause irregular growth of the shell which, generally, causes cracking near the surface, and the thicker mold causes faster growth of the shell, and the higher thermal contact resistance leads to faster growth of the shell.