Theoretical and numerical study of lamellar eutectic three-phase growth in ternary alloys

TL;DR

This paper combines analytical calculations and phase-field simulations to study the formation, stability, and instabilities of lamellar three-phase patterns in ternary eutectic alloys during directional solidification.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of stable lamellar three-phase growth in ternary alloys, including new instability predictions and three-dimensional growth insights.

Findings

Analytic expressions for front undercooling as a function of growth parameters.

Identification of oscillatory instabilities similar to binary eutectics.

Discovery of a new instability at small spacings causing phase sequence changes.

Abstract

We investigate lamellar three-phase patterns that form during the directional solidification of ternary eutectic alloys in thin samples. A distinctive feature of this system is that many different geometric arrangements of the three phases are possible, contrary to the widely studied two-phase patterns in binary eutectics. Here, we first analyze the case of stable lamellar coupled growth of a symmetric model ternary eutectic alloy, using a Jackson-Hunt type calculation in thin film morphology, for arbitrary configurations, and derive expressions for the front undercooling as a function of velocity and spacing. Next, we carry out phase-field simulations to test our analytic predictions and to study the instabilities of the simplest periodic lamellar arrays. For large spacings, we observe different oscillatory modes that are similar to those found previously for binary eutectics and that can be classified using the symmetry elements of the steady-state pattern. For small spacings, we observe a new instability that leads to a change in the sequence of the phases. Its onset can be well predicted by our analytic calculations. Finally, some preliminary phase-field simulations of three-dimensional growth structures are also presented.