Journal of Materials Science, Vol.46, No.20, 6603-6608, 2011
Novel insight into microstructural evolution of phase-separated Cu-Co alloys under influence of forced convection
Cu-Co alloys of bulk compositions Cu(75)Co(25) and Cu(84)Co(16) were undercooled and solidified using electromagnetic levitation. Microstructure of the samples was characterized using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometry, and micro X-ray diffraction analysis. It was found that besides a bimodal size distribution, droplets of the Co-rich L(1) phase resulting from liquid phase separation have a broad composition distribution. The bimodal size distribution of the droplets is more pronounced for the Cu(75)Co(25) sample than for the Cu(84)Co(16) sample, whilst the composition distribution of the droplets is broader in the Cu(75)Co(25) sample than in the Cu(84)Co(16) sample. The droplets were found to also have different types of substructures in the two samples. The results provide novel insight into microstructural evolution of phase-separated alloys under influence of forced convection.