Electro­magnetic stirring is an elegant way to influence the flow in metallic melts contactless. This allows a target-oriented influence on the microstructure without changing in alloy composition or the production process.
An percentage increase of equiaxed grains, a homogeneous chemical composition and a reduction in surface defects are possible.

Understanding and control of the impact of melt convection on the formation of segregation channels during solidification requires an authentic knowledge about the interaction between the dendritic growth and the solutal-driven flow. It becomes obvious from the experiments that crystallization of the dendrites and the melt convection are strongly coupled via the concentration field.

The local dynamics of dendritic sidearms during coarsening and tip growth are studied by in-situ synchrotron radiography. This method offers high spatial and temporal resolution o­ver a relatively large sample area. The present experiments provide real-time in-situ data on two phenomena that are of great importance in coarsening of dendrites: sidearm retraction and pinch-off.