Convective heat transfer during dendritic solidification

Experiments on succinonitrile are described in which the dependence of dendritic growth velocity is studied as a function of orientation with respect to gravity. Growth rate measurements were carried out at a relatively small supercooling, requiring high specimen purity as well as extreme thermal stability and precision temperature measurement. The normalized growth velocity showed a dependence on orientation described by the ratio of observed growth velocity to that expected for convection-free growth being equal to 3.52 times the n-th power of Cos half the orientation angle, where n lies between 0.5 and 0.75.