Promoting the columnar to equiaxed transition and grain refinement of titanium alloys during additive manufacturing

Preventing columnar grain formation during additive manufacturing has become a significant challenge. Columnar grains are generally regarded as unfavourable as their presence can impart solidification defects and mechanical property anisotropy, however, the thermal conditions experienced during additive manufacturing make columnar grains difficult to avoid. In this work the thermal conditions during solidification (cooling rate, temperature gradients) are characterised during wire based additive manufacturing. For the selection of deposition conditions that favour equiaxed grain formation, the role of alloy constitution is explored in three classical alloy design regimes: an alloy containing no grain refiners (Ti–6Al–4V); an alloy only containing grain refining solutes (Ti–3Al–8V–6Cr–4Mo–4Zr); and an alloy containing both grain refining solute and nucleant particles (Ti–3Al–8V–6Cr–4Mo–4Zr + La O ). Substantial refinement and equiaxed grain formation is achieved in the latter case which is attributed to β-Ti nucleation on La O . However, the thermal environment is dynamic during additive manufacturing and equiaxed grain formation is only achievable when temperature gradients decrease sufficiently to permit constitutional supercooling

Ordovician Macquarie Arc and turbidite fan relationships, Lachlan Orogen, southeastern Australia: stratigraphic and tectonic problems

Ordovician rocks of the Lachlan Orogen consist of two major associations, mafic to intermediate volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks (Macquarie Arc), which aerially comprise several north-south-trending belts, and the quartz-rich turbidite succession. Relationships between these associations are integral to resolving their tectonic settings and opinions range between contacts being major thrusts, combinations of various types of faults, and stratigraphic contacts with structural complications. Stratigraphic contacts between these associations are found with volcaniclastic-dominant units overlying quartz-turbidite units along the eastern boundary of the eastern volcanic belt and along the southern boundary of the central volcanic belt. Mixing between these major associations is limited and reflects waning quartzose turbidite deposition along a gently sloping sea floor not penetrating steeper volcaniclastic aprons that were developing around the growing volcanic centres formed during late Middle Ordovician to early Silurian Macquarie Arc igneous activity. An island arc setting has been most widely supported for the Macquarie Arc, but the identification and polarity of the associated subduction zone remain a contentious issue particularly for the Early Ordovician phase of igneous activity. The Macquarie Arc initiated within a Cambrian backarc formed by sea-floor spreading behind a boninitic island arc and presumably reflects a renewed response to regional convergence as subduction ceased along the Ross-Delamerian convergent boundary at the East Gondwana continental margin. An extensional episode accompanied initiation of the late Middle Ordovician expansion in island arc development. A SSE-dipping subduction zone is considered to have formed the Macquarie Arc and underwent anticlockwise rotation about an Euler pole at the western termination of the island arc. This resulted in widespread deformation west of the Macquarie Arc in the Benambran Orogeny and development of subduction along the eastern margin of the orogenic belt

Mid to late Paleozoic shortening pulses in the Lachlan Orogen, southeastern Australia: a review

In the late Silurian, the Lachlan Orogen of southeastern Australia had a varied paleogeography with deep-marine, shallow-marine, subaerial environments and widespread igneous activity reflecting an extensional backarc setting. This changed to a compressional-extensional regime in the Devonian associated with episodic compressional events, including the Bindian, Tabberabberan and Kanimblan orogenies. The Early Devonian Bindian Orogeny was associated with SSE transport of the Wagga-Omeo Zone that was synchronous with thick sedimentation in the Cobar and Darling basins in central and western New South Wales. Shortening has been controlled by the margins of the Wagga-Omeo Zone with partitioning along strike-slip faults, such as along the Gilmore Fault, and inversion of pre-existing extensional basins including the Limestone Creek Graben and the Canbelego-Mineral Hill Volcanic Belt. Shortening was more widespread in the late Early Devonian to Middle Devonian Tabberabberan Orogeny, with major deformation in the Melbourne Zone, Cobar Basin and eastern Lachlan Orogen. In the eastern Melbourne Zone, structural trends have been controlled by the pre-existing structural grain in the adjacent Tabberabbera Zone. Elsewhere Tabberabberan deformation involved inversion of pre-existing rifts resulting in a variation in structural trends. In the Early Carboniferous, the Lachlan Orogen was in a compressional backarc setting west of the New England continental margin arc with Kanimblan deformation most evident in Upper Devonian units in the eastern Lachlan Orogen. Kanimblan structures include major thrusts and associated fault-propagation folds indicated by footwall synclines with a steeply dipping to overturned limb adjacent to the fault. Ongoing deformation and sedimentation have been documented in the Mt Howitt Province of eastern Victoria. Overall, structural trends reflect a combination of controls provided by reactivation of pre-existing contractional and extensional structures in dominantly E-W shortening operating intermittently from the earliest Devonian to Early Carboniferous

The Anatomy of an Alkalic Porphyry Cu-Au System: Geology and Alteration at Northparkes Mines, New South Wales, Australia

The Late Ordovician-early Silurian (~455–435 Ma) Northparkes system is a group of silica-saturated, alkalic porphyry deposits and prospects that developed within the Macquarie island arc. The system is host to a spectacular and diverse range of rocks and alteration-mineralization textures that facilitate a detailed understanding of its evolution, in particular the nature and controls of porphyry-related propylitic alteration. The first intrusive phase at Northparkes is a pre- to early-mineralization pluton that underlies all the deposits and varies in composition from a biotite quartz monzonite to alkali feldspar granite. Prior to total crystallization, this pluton was intruded by a more primitive quartz monzonite that marks the onset of a fertile fractionation series. Toward its upper levels, the quartz monzonite is porphyritic and locally rich in Cu sulfides. Subsequently, a complex series of synmineralization quartz monzonite porphyries was emplaced. The quartz monzonite porphyry intrusions have a distinct pipe-like morphology and are ubiquitously K-feldspar–altered with a crystal-crowded porphyritic texture. The textures of the quartz monzonite porphyries and common occurrence of porphyry-cemented contact breccias indicate they were forcibly emplaced and of relatively low viscosity. The quartz monzonite porphyries are therefore interpreted as crystal-bearing, silicate melt-aqueous fluid slurries that represent the conduits through which deep-seated magmatic-derived ore fluid was discharged into the shallow crust (1–2 km depth). Each deposit is centered on a multiphase cluster of quartz monzonite porphyry intrusions that drove discrete hydrothermal systems. Initial fluid evolution was similar in all the deposits, with three major alteration facies developed as largely concentric zones around the quartz monzonite porphyry complexes. The innermost zone is host to Cu sulfide ore and dominated by K-feldspar alteration. This transitions outward through a shell of magnetite ± biotite alteration, with pyrite and minor chalcopyrite, to an outer halo of propylitic alteration. Generally, epidote, chlorite, and pyrite are abundant in the most deposit-proximal propylitic zone, with a decrease in the abundance of pyrite, and then epidote, with increasing distance away from deposit centers. Propylitic alteration, particularly within relatively low permeability rocks, is fracture-controlled and a hierarchy of veins is observed. Veins of chlorite-quartz-pyrite ± calcite ± hematite ± epidote ± chalcopyrite (P1) appear to represent the principal fluid conduits. They are surrounded by pervasive and intense alteration halos with a distinct mineralogical zonation from vein-proximal chlorite-sericite (phengite) ± epidote ± pyrite, through hematite-sericite-chlorite ± epidote, ultimately to a vein-distal hematite-albite ± chlorite ± epidote assemblage. These P1 veins are surrounded by regions in which smaller epidote-chlorite ± calcite ± quartz ± pyrite veins (P2) are abundant, again with zoned alteration envelopes: vein-proximal chlorite-sericite (phengite) ± epidote ± pyrite grades out into an epidote-rich zone, which in turn transitions into vein-distal albite-hematite ± chlorite ± epidote. Areas of weakest propylitic alteration, distant from both P1 and P2 veins, are characterized by small epidote-only veinlets (P3) with albite-hematite halos. Mineralogical transitions across the propylitic zone are therefore repeated in the evolution from P1 to P3 veins, as well as in the halos around these veins. It is the overall vein abundance and overlap of associated alteration halos that controls the intensity and appearance of propylitic alteration in most rocks. Such scale invariance and spatial relationships strongly suggest the transition from P1 to P3 veins reflects a broadly decreasing outward flux of (magmatic-derived?) fluid that passed through the fracture network and progressively reacted with country rocks. Further support for this hypothesis comes from crosscutting relationships and Rb-Sr dating of epidote (returning an age of 450 ± 11 Ma), which demonstrate the bulk of propylitic alteration was coeval with mineralization and potassic alteration. Late-stage fluid evolution at each deposit was unique. Much of the E48 orebody, and locally the GRP314 deposit, was overprinted by texturally destructive, white sericite-albite-quartz-alunite ± chlorite alteration. In the E26 deposit and in regions of the GRP314 deposit a series of quartz-anhydrite ± pyrite ± Cu sulfide veins with distinctive, vein-proximal, sericite-dominant alteration halos cuts the primary, deposit-concentric alteration facies. The vein-distal mineralogy of these alteration halos is controlled by their distance from deposit centers, changing from K-feldspar ± biotite in deposit-proximal veins to chlorite ± epidote-albite in depositdistal veins. Late-mineralization quartz monzonite porphyries at E26 and GRP314 also appear to be related to the generation of anhydrite-quartz ± sphalerite veins and a set of quartz-calcite-pyrite-sphalerite ± chalcopyrite ± galena veins. Postmineralization magmatic activity produced relatively primitive and barren monzonite porphyries and younger alkali basalt dikes.The attached document is the author(’s’) final accepted/submitted version of the journal article. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it