Direct observation of spatially isothermal equiaxed solidification of an Al-Cu alloy in microgravity on board the MASER 13 sounding rocket

Microgravity-based solidification is compared to an identical pre-flight ground-based experiment using the same sample and experiment timeline. The ground experiment was designed to minimise gravity effects, by choice of a horizontal orientation for the sample, so that any differences would be subtle. The first equiaxed nucleation occurred at an apparent undercooling of 0.6 K less than the equivalent event during microgravity. During primary equiaxed solidification, as expected, no buoyant grain motion was observed during microgravity, compared to modest grain rotation and reorientation observed during terrestrial-based solidification. However, when the cooling rate was increased from −0.05 K/s to −1.0 K/s during the latter stages of solidification, in both 1g and micro-g environments, some grain movement was apparent due to liquid feeding and mechanical impingement of neighbouring grains.