Influence of the static high magnetic field on the liquid–liquid phase separation during solidifying the hyper-monotectic alloys

Magnetic in-situ quenching refers to fixing and quenching the sample at a static high magnetic field (SHMF) up to 18 T; it has been achieved by a specially designed facility. Zn-7wt%Bi and Zn-10wt%Bi hyper-monotectic melts were quenched under different magnetic flux densities to investigate the influence of SHMF on the liquid–liquid phase separation process in solidifying hyper-monotectic alloys. Because this separation is mainly caused by the growth of minority phase droplets (Bi droplets in the present study), and such growth is attributed to the diffusion of Bi element and the coalescence between the droplets, the influence of SHMF on the growth of Bi droplets was analyzed. Results show that the imposed SHMF prevented the formation of layered structure in the Zn-10wt%Bi alloy and refined the Bi particles in the Zn-7wt%Bi alloy, which indicates that the SHMF retarded the liquid–liquid phase separation during solidifying the hyper-monotectic alloys. Indeed, the two motions of droplets in determining the coalescence, Marangoni migration and Stocks sedimentation, were slowed down by the applied SHMF. Analytical estimations of the magnitude of such damping effect have been made and show that the 18 T SHMF could reduce the speed of Stokes sedimentation and Marangoni migration of the minority phase droplets by about 95.5 % and 62.4 %, respectively.