Effect of Contact Gap in Directional Solidification of AlSiFe Alloys

One of the methods to study solidification of alloys and metals is directional solidification. In the paper the effect of the contact gap between the analyzed specimen and the bottom heater was analysed. The occurring contact gap caused the increase in planned solidification velocity. For the facility calibration the methodology with M coefficient was applied. The experiments revealed efficient values of M and allowed to conduct efficiently the directional solidification of AlSiFe alloys in wide range of growth rates. The effect of the contact gap seems to be random phenomena and most difficult factor influencing precisely planned directional solidification