Applications of irreversible thermodynamics to rapid solidification of multicomponent alloys

Abstract

Solidification, as the key step in physical metallurgy, plays a decisive role in tuning the various properties of materials. From a thermodynamic perspective, the solidification processes can be considered as the evolution of non-equilibrium systems, where the metastable melts become the stable solids with lower free energy. In contrast to equilibrium thermodynamics, which focus on the static equilibrium states, irreversible thermodynamics is a powerful tool to describe the evolution of non-equilibrium systems and has been successfully applied to various fields in materials science. In the present paper, we review the basic philosophy for the phenomenological irreversible thermodynamics, the methods to obtain the governing equations for the evolution of multicomponent solidifying systems and the potential applications to other metallurgical phenomena.