Directional solidification (DS) techniques have been widely used in turbine industry for decades due to the DS columnar grains have demonstrated numerous benefits along the preferential direction at elevated temperatures. The objective of this paper is to investigate grain structure formation for different structure features of blade during directional solidification. In this study, a visual numerical simulation of the nucleationgrowth of grains in component-like specimens of DS blades was provided using a combined Cellular Automation-Finite Elements (CAFE) model. The predicted grain structure shows reasonably good agreement with prior experimental results and it is confirmed that the simulation method offers the capability to capture the casting process for DS components of nickel-based superalloys. The method can be used for the complete simulation of grain structure in DS turbine blades, which may have important meanings for the design and life prediction of the turbine blade.
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