Dendritic growth tip velocities and radii of curvature in microgravity

Dendritic growth is the common mode of solidification encountered when metals and alloys freeze under low thermal gradients. The growth of dendrites in pure melts depends on the transport of latent heat from the moving crystal-melt interface and the influence of weaker effects like the interfacial energy, Experimental data for critical tests of dendritic growth theories remained limited because dendritic growth can be complicated by convection. The Isothermal Dendritic Growth Experiment (IDGE) was developed specifically to test dendritic growth theories by performing measurements with succinonitrile (SCN) in microgravity, thus eliminating buoyancy-induced convection. The first flight of the IDGE in 1994 operated for 9 days at a mean quasi-static acceleration of 0.7 x 10(-6) g(0). The velocity and radius data show that at supercoolings above approximately 0.4 K, dendritic growth in SCN under microgravity conditions is diffusion limited. By contrast, under terrestrial conditions, dendritic growth of SCN is dominated by convection for supercoolings below 1.7 K. The theoretical and experimental Peclet numbers exhibit modest disagreement, indicating that transport theories of dendritic solidification require some modification. Finally, the kinetic selection rule for dendritic growth, VR2 = constant, where V is the velocity of the tip and R is the radius of curvature at the tip, appears to be independent of the gravity environment, with a slight dependence on the supercooling.