ABSTRACT
The fact that large-scale castings and ingots are not homogeneous in chemical composition has been known for centuries. The Italian metallurgist and foundryman V. Biringuccio described segregation in bronze gun barrels in his book De la Pirotechnia as early as 1540 [1]. In 1574 the Austro-Hungarian chemist L. Ercker published his observations of liquation in precious alloys [2]. As Pell-Wallpole notes in a brilliant review [3], most observations and studies of macrosegregation during the nineteenth century were about precious metals, including works by W.C. Roberts-Austin (1875) and E. Matthey (1890) in Great Britain. In 1866-1867 Russian metallurgists A.S. Lavrov and N.V. Kalakutsky observed macrosegregation in steel ingots and noted that its degree depended on the size of the ingot [4]. Lavrov noted that macrosegregation was caused by the precipitation of carbon during steel solidifi cation and accumulation of low-melting components in the center of the ingot. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century, however, that macrosegregation attracted real scientifi c interest, fi rst as related to steel and bronze ingots and later as related to aluminum billets and ingots. Pioneering works include those of T. Turner, M.T. Murray, E.A. Smith, O. Bauer, H. Arndt, R.C. Reader, R. Kühnel, and F.W. Rowe on copper alloys and those of G. Masing, W. Claus, S.M. Voronov, and W. Roth on aluminum alloys (citation information can be found in Ref. [3]).
