Spacing homogenization in lamellar eutectic arrays with anisotropic interphase boundaries

We analyze the effect of interphase boundary anisotropy on the dynamics of lamellar eutectic solidification fronts, in the limit that the lamellar spacing varies slowly along the envelope of the front. In the isotropic case, it is known that the spacing obeys a diffusion equation, which can be obtained theoretically by making two assumptions: (i) The lamellae always grow normal to the large-scale envelope of the front, and (ii) the Jackson-Hunt law that links lamellar spacing and front temperature remains locally valid. For anisotropic boundaries, we replace hypothesis (i) by the symmetric pattern approximation, which has recently been found to yield good predictions for lamellar growth direction in presence of interphase anisotropy. We obtain a generalized Jackson-Hunt law for tilted lamellae, and an evolution equation for the envelope of the front. The latter contains a propagative term if the initial lamellar array is tilted with respect to the direction of the temperature gradient. However, the propagation velocity of the propagative wave modes are found to be small, so that the dynamics of the front can be reasonably described by a diffusion equation with a diffusion coefficient that is modified with respect to the isotropic case.