New Composition Based Technique for Solidification Cracking Resistance Evaluation

Predicting the occurrence of solidification cracking during the solidification of metallic alloys by numerical simulation is a crucial move for avoiding such defects. Several models are widely available, however, the application of such are impacted due to the specific and not accessible parameters required. A simple, composition-based approach to rank solidification cracking susceptibility is presented. The procedure links computational thermodynamic and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to provide an evaluation tool for solidification cracking. The method is related to the liquid filling phenomena in dendritic arms during solidification, which plays a critical role in solidification cracking phenomena. The dendritic profiles were constructed using the fraction of solid calculated by commercial thermodynamic software packages. The calculated results were compared with experimental solidification cracking data and showed satisfactory accuracy. The method capability to rank the solidification cracking propensity of similar alloys based on composition provides an important new operative tool to aid alloy development in welding and additive manufacturing related areas.