Directional solidification (DS) is an established manufacturing process to produce highperformance components from metallic materials with optimized properties. Materials for demanding high-temperature applications, for instance in energy generation and aircraft engine technology, can only be successfully produced using methods such as directional solidification.It has been applied on an industrial scale for a considerable amount of time, but advancing this method beyond the current applications is still challenging and almost exclusively limited to post-process characterization of the developed microstructures. For a knowledge-based advancement and a contribution to material innovation, in-situ studies of the DS process are crucial using realistic sample sizes to ensure scalability of the results to industrial sizes. Therefore, a specially designed Flexible Directional Solidification (FlexiDS) device was developed for use at the P07 High Energy Materials Science (HEMS) beamline at PETRA III (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY); Hamburg, Germany). In general, the process conditions of the crucible-free, inductively heated FlexiDS device can be varied from 6 to 12000 mm/h (vertical withdrawal rate) and from 0 to 35 rpm (axial sample rotation).Moreover, different atmospheres like Ar, N2, vacuum can be used during operation. The device is designed for maximum operation temperatures of 2200 °C. This unique device allows in-situ examination of the directional solidification process and subsequent solid-state reactions by Xray diffraction in the transmission mode. Within this project, different structural intermetallic alloys with liquidus temperatures up to 2000 °C were studied in terms of liquid-solid regions, transformations and decompositions, with varying process conditions.
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