Numerical simulation of equiaxed growth of Ni-based alloy in multi-directional flowing melt

[Display omitted] •A new model was built to simulate the crystal growth in multi-directional flow.•The crystal morphology strongly depends on the flow directions.•The effect of melt flow on the crystal growth is related to the cooling condition.•The present work contributes to optimize the casting process of Ni-based alloys. A model for crystal growth in multi-directional flowing melt was built to study the crystal morphology evolution during solidification under forced convection. Based on the model, the formation of non-dendritic structure of Ni-based alloy solidified with forced convection was numerically investigated by the cellular automata method. The results indicate that the crystal morphology strongly depends on the flow directions. The change of flow directions brings a much different condition for crystal growth, including heat transfer and solute diffusion in front of the solid-liquid interface, which eventually results in the formation of non-dendritic morphology. Besides, it is found that the influence of forced convection on the crystal growth is closely related to the cooling condition. The forced convection has to be intensive enough to achieve the non-dendritic morphology for the solidification condition with high cooling rate.