Effect of Rapid Heating and Cooling Conditions on Microstructure Formation in Powder Bed Fusion of Al-Si Hypoeutectic Alloy: A Phase-Field Study

Al alloy parts fabricated by powder bed fusion (PBF) have attracted much attention because of the degrees of freedom in both shapes and mechanical properties. We previously reported that the Si regions in Al-Si alloy that remain after the rapid remelting process in PBF act as intrinsic heterogeneous nucleation sites during the subsequent resolidification. This suggests that the Si particles are crucial for a novel grain refinement strategy. To provide guidelines for grain refinement, the effects of solidification, remelting, and resolidification conditions on microstructures were investigated by multiphase-field simulation. We revealed that the resolidification microstructure is determined by the size and number of Si regions in the initial solidification microstructures and by the threshold size for the nucleation site, depending on the remelting and resolidification conditions. Furthermore, the most refined microstructure with the average grain size of 4.8 µm is predicted to be formed under conditions with a large temperature gradient of = 10 K/m in the initial solidification, a high heating rate of = 10 K/s in the remelting process, and a fast solidification rate of = 10 m/s in the resolidification process. Each of these conditions is necessary to be considered to control the microstructures of Al-Si alloys fabricated via PBF.