Cast grain texture and crystallization modes
Solidification — Macrostructures and product quality

If you look at a metallographic cross-section of as-cast metal, you can see the metal's grains. Each of these grains corresponds to a crystal formed from a distinct nucleus (exogenous particle, crystalline debris, etc., cf. ) and grew until its growth was halted by the presence of neighboring crystals.

In some cases, particularly in the case of industrially pure metals or alloys with very low solute content, only the grain boundaries separating the crystals can be distinguished. In most cases, however, metallographic etching reveals the dendritic appearance of each crystal, either because the etching directly reveals chemical heterogeneities linked to dendritic growth (cf. ), or one or more other phases have...