Microstructural Pattern Formation during Far-from-Equilibrium Alloy Solidification.

We introduce a new phase-field formulation of rapid alloy solidification that quantitatively incorporates nonequilibrium effects at the solid-liquid interface over a very wide range of interface velocities. Simulations identify a new dynamical instability of dendrite tip growth driven by solute trapping at velocities approaching the absolute stability limit. They also reproduce the formation of the widely observed banded microstructures, revealing how this instability triggers transitions between dendritic and microsegregation-free solidification. Predicted band spacings agree quantitatively with observations in rapidly solidified Al-Cu thin films.

Numerical simulation of gas flow and heat transfer in a rough microchannel using the lattice Boltzmann method.

In microfluidics, two important factors responsible for the differences between the characteristics of the flow and heat transfer in microchannels and conventional channels are rarefaction and surface roughness which are studied in the present work. An incompressible gas flow in a microchannel is simulated two dimensionally using the lattice Boltzmann method. The flow is in the slip regime and surface roughness is modeled by both regular and Gaussian random distribution of rectangular modules. The effects of relative surface roughness height and Knudsen number on gaseous flow and heat transfer are studied. It was shown that as the relative roughness height increases, the Poiseuille number increases and the Nusselt number has a decreasing or increasing trend, depending on the degree of rarefaction. A comparison between the flow and heat transfer characteristics in regular and random distribution of surface roughness demonstrates that in regular roughness, circular flows are more pronounced; Poiseuille number is higher and Nusselt number is lower than that of its equivalent random roughness.