UNDERCOOLING AND NUCLEATION DURING SOLIDIFICATION

Undercooling of liquids is a common occurrence in solidification. The level of undercooling influences both the microstructural development by controlling phase selection during nucleation and the morphological evolution during the growth phase of solidification. The development of large liquid undercooling is linked to kinetic control of solidific ation processes including suppression of heterogeneous nucleation duri ng slow cooling and constrained growth during rapid quenching. The dee pest undercoolings have been measured in droplet samples and approach 0.3-0.4 . T-m. At high undercooling, solidification can yield metastab le product structures, whose constituents are the result of kinetic co mpetition which usually is determined during the nucleation phase and controlled by heterogeneous nucleation. Recently, theoretical, experim ental and simulation advances have led to a better understanding of nu cleation catalysis reactions and the influence of thermal history duri ng processing at high and low undercoolings. Detailed analysis of the kinetic competition process during solidification along with novel exp eriments have probed the limits of nucleation theory in both size and time scales and have stimulated new developments in theoretical modeli ng and computer simulation studies.