Self-similar microstructural evolution of dendritic solid-liquid mixtures during coarsening

The microstructural evolution of equiaxed dendritic Al-Cu microstructures of two different solid volume fractions (46% and 72%) during isothermal coarsening was studied. We found that the microstructures evolved self-similarly, both morphologically and topologically, while the inverse specific surface area increased as the cube root of time. The differences in scaled morphologies and topologies could be attributed to the difference in solid volume fraction, with the higher volume fraction sample exhibiting a more compact interface shape distribution and a smaller scaled genus.