（The effect of liquid diffusion coefficients on the microstructure evolution during solidification of primary （Al） phase in Al356.1 alloy was investigated by means of the phase-field simulation using two sets of diffusion coefficients in liquid phase, while fixing other thermophysical and numerical parameters. The first set is only with impurity coefficients of liquid phase in Arrhenius formula representing only the temperature dependence. While the second set is with the well-established atomic mobility database representing both temperature and concentration dependence. For the second set of liquid diffusion coefficients, the effect of non-diagonal diffusion coefficients on the microstructure evolution in Al356.1 alloy during solidification was also analyzed. The differences were observed in the morphology, tip velocity and composition profile ahead of the tip of the dendrite due to the three cases of liquid diffusivities. The simulation results indicate that accurate databases of mobilities in the liquid phase are highly needed for the quantitative simulation of microstructural evolution during solidification.
The structural, elastic and electronic properties of Cu-X compounds in the Cu-X(X =Al, Be, Mg, Sn, Zn and Zr) systems were predicted systematically by first-principles calculations. The ground state properties such as lattice constant, bulk modulus(B)and it's pressure derivative(B') were predicted by fitting a four-parameter Birch–Murnaghan equation and the elastic constants(cij′s)are determined by an efficient strain-stress method. The calculated lattice parameters and cij′s of these binary compounds agree well with the available experimental data in the literature. In addition, elastic properties of polycrystalline aggregates including bulk modulus(B), shear modulus(G), elastic modulus(E), B/G(bulk/shear) ratio, and anisotropy ratio(AU) are calculated and compared with the experimental and theoretical results available in the literature. Based on electronic density of states(DOS) analysis, it can be revealed that all the compounds in the present work are metallic in nature.
High-purity titanium powder was prepared by molten salt electrorefining from sponge titanium in NaCl-KCl-TiClx salts. The titanium valence, purity and electrocrystallization during electrolysis process were studied. The XPS analysis showed that the titanium valences are mainly ＋4, ＋3 and ＋2 at the earlier, medium and later stages of electrolysis, respectively. During the electrolysis process, the contents of impurities Si, Cr, Mn, Al vary little, and the contents of impurities Fe, Cu, Ni decrease markedly, while the contents of impurities O, N, H increase obviously. The residual impurities are usually distributed in small tunnel of dendritic crystals. Enhancing the electrolysis temperature and prolonging the electrolysis time can increase the titanium particle size. The TEM analysis showed that the electrodeposited titanium is not a single crystal, but contains many nanostructured grains and subgrains, with grain size of 100-500 nm. The electrolysis mechanisms were also discussed.
A solid state synthesis of ultrafine/nanocrystalline WC-10Co composite powders was reported from WO3 , Co3O4 and carbon powders after reduction and carburization at relatively low temperatures in a short time under pure H2 atmosphere. The effects of ball milling time and reaction temperature on the preparation of ultrafine/nanocrystalline WC-Co composite powders were studied using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results show that fine mixed oxide powders (WO3 , Co3O4 and carbon powders) can be obtained by long time ball milling. Increasing the reaction temperature can decrease the formation of Co3W3C and graphite phases and increase the WC crystallite size. Long-time ball milling and high reaction temperature are favorable to obtain fine and pure composite powders consisting of nanocrystalline WC from WO3 , Co3O4 and carbon powders.
