Experimental analyzis of the effect of electromagnetic stirring on the solidification process of the Sn-10wt.%Pb alloy

International audienceA comparative study of solidification experiments for three modes of electromagnetic stirring is conducted on a benchmark experiment model. The goal of this work is to analyse the effect of different forced convection by changing the direction of the Lorentz force on the solidification process with respect to different aspects: thermal, structure, and morphology of segregation. Experimental results consist of instantaneous temperature maps provided by a lattice of 50 thermocouples welded on the large crucible side and post-mortem characterizations of the samples, such as X-ray imaging and metallography. Results show that forced convection promotes equiaxed structures, the fluid flow pattern influences grain size according to its direction with respect to natural convection. However, the results show that all electromagnetic stirring modes effectively reduce macrosegregations significantly, while remaining inactive for reducing development of segregated channels