Undercoolability of Superalloys and Solidification Defects in Single Crystal Components

The undercooling behaviour of the superalloys IN 939 and CMSX-6 during the isothermal heating and cooling processes was investigated. Under the same process conditions, the undercoolability of CMSX-6 was measured to be 50.4 K while that of IN 939 was only 10.1 K. This great difference can be attributed to the amount of alloying elements. During Bridgman directional solidification using the same process parameters, the used alloys exhibited a very different tendency to form structure defects. While the CMSX-6 components were nearly defect-free, the IN 939 samples of the same geometry were very prone to stray grain formation. This difference can be attributed to the different undercoolability of the investigated superalloys. Therefore, the undercoolability is an important factor of castability and the cast quality of single crystal components can be effectively improved by increasing the undercoolability of the superalloys.