Abstract:The average lamellar spacing and interface undercooling in steady-state irregular eutectic growth were estimated based on the Jackson and Hunt’s analysis by relaxing the isothermal interface assumption. At low growth rates, the average lamellar spacing and average interface undercooling are dependent only on the characteristic thermo-physical properties of a binary eutectic system. For a general Al-Si eutectic, it is found that the eutectic characteristic length based on the present non-isothermal analysis is consistent with that obtained from isothermal analysis; however, the average interface undercooling is remarkably different between them, and such discrepancy in average interface undercooling increases with increasing of growth rate. The measured interface undercooling obtained from literature is reasonably interpreted by present non-isothermal analysis.

Key words: solidification; irregular eutectic; lamellar spacing; spacing selection