Kinetics of the microstructure formation in a rapid solidified immiscible alloy

Abstract A model is presented to describe the microstructure evolution during a liquid–liquid decomposition when cooling an alloy rapidly in the miscibility gap. The model was first verified by comparing with the experiments and then applied to investigate the microstructure formation in a rapid solidified Cu–Co alloy. The results indicate that the size of the minority phase particles is dominated by the nucleation behavior of the minority phase droplets (MPDs) during the liquid–liquid decomposition. Both the Brownian coagulations of the MPDs and the diffusional interaction between the MPDs affect the nucleation of the MPDs. The later has a relatively stronger effect.