Numerical simulation of columnar dendritic grain growth during weld solidification process

A numerical model based on cellular automaton algorithm is developed to simulate dendrite growth at the edge of weld molten pool and the solute diffusion during grain growing process in weld solidification is analysed too. By means of two-dimensional square cells and von Neumann neighbourhood, the growing morphologies of the columnar dendritic grains with different cooling rates and different numbers of seeds are simulated. The growth of secondary dendrite arms, tertiary dendrite arms and their competitive growth are also presented. The results illustrate that the final primary dendrite spacing depends on the number of seeds that initially generated. With increasing cooling rate, the growing speed is increasing obviously. It is also indicated that competitive growth exists between different dendrite arms. The tendency of competitive growth in high cooling rate conditions is weaker than the one in relatively small cooling rate conditions.