Orientation selection of equiaxed dendritic growth by three-dimensional cellular automaton model

A three-dimensional (3-D) adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) cellular automata (CA) model is developed to simulate the equiaxed dendritic growth of pure substance. In order to reduce the mesh induced anisotropy by CA capture rules, a limited neighbor solid fraction (LNSF) method is presented. An expansion description using two interface free energy anisotropy parameters (\epsilon1, \epsilon2) is used in present 3-D CA model. The dendrite growths with the orientation selection between <100> and <110> are discussed using the different \epsilon1 with \epsilon2=-0.02. It is found that the simulated morphologies by present CA model are as expected from the minimum stiffness criterion.