Phase-field-lattice Boltzmann studies for dendritic growth with natural convection

Simulating dendritic growth with natural convection is challenging because of the size of the computational domain required when compared to the dendrite scale. In this study, a phase-field-lattice Boltzmann model was used to simulate dendritic growth in the presence of natural convection due to a difference in solute concentration. To facilitate and accelerate the large-scale simulation, a parallel computing code with multiple graphics processing units was developed. The effects of the computational domain size as well as those of gravity on the dendritic morphologies were examined by performing two-dimensional free dendritic growth simulations with natural convection. The effects of the gravity direction on the dendrite spacing and morphology were also investigated by simulating unidirectional solidification from multiple seeds.