A front-tracking measurement technique for in-situ columnar and equiaxed structure growth with controlled solidification

Abstract Growth rate is an important consideration in solidification as it influences features of the micro and macrostructure such morphology columnar to equiaxed transition. Thus, accurately quantifying growth key understanding process well verifying numerical simulations. In this work, experimental apparatus has been developed investigate in-situ directional using a transparent analogue material, neopentyl glycol-35 wt%(D)camphor. The facility enables control mushy zone imposed temperature gradient during solidification, similar Bridgman type furnaces. Image processing techniques were for automated tracking position front (SF) background subtraction on photographic image sequences captured experiments. measurements technique traditional method (liquidus isotherm speed) have benchmarked against manual rate. Results show that automatically tracked compares throughout experiments with errors less than 2.7%. Contrastingly, speed was error up 19%. Three two morphologies investigated SFs characterised their rates thermal conditions.