Heat Transfer Coefficient in Rapid Solidification of a Liquid Layer on a Substrate

The heat transfer coefficient at the bottom surface of a splat rapidly solidified on a cold substrate is self-consistently and quantitatively investigated. Provided that the boundary condition at the bottom surface of the splat is specified by introducing the obtained heat transfer coefficient, solutions of the splat can be conveniently obtained without solving the substrate. In this work, the solidification front in the splat is governed by nonequilibrium kinetics while the melting front in the substrate undergoes equilibrium phase change. By solving one-dimensional unsteady heat conduction equations and accounting for distinct properties between phases and splat and substrate, the results show that the time-dependent heat transfer coefficient or Biot number can be divided into five regimes: liquid splat-solid substrate, liquid splat-liquid substrate, nucleation of splat, solid splat-solid substrate, and solid splat-liquid substrate. The Biot number at the bottom surface of the splat during liquid splat cooling increases and nucleation time decreases with increasing contact Biot number, density ratio, and solid conductivity of the substrate, and decreasing specific heat ratio. Decreases in melting temperature and liquid conductivity of the substrate and increase in latent heat ratio further decrease the Biot number at the bottom surface of the splat after the substrate becomes molten. Time-dependent Biot number at the bottom surface of the splat is obtained from a scale analysis. [S0022-1481(00)01004-5]