This comprehensive work explores interfacial instability and pattern formation in dynamic systems away from the equilibrium state in solidification and crystal growth. Further, this significantly expanded 2nd edition introduces and reviews the progress made during the last two decades. In particular, it describes the most prominent pattern formation phenomena commonly observed in material processing and crystal growth in the framework of the previously established interfacial wave theory, including free dendritic growth from undercooled melt, cellular growth and eutectic growth in directional solidification, as well as viscous fingering in Hele-Shaw flow. It elucidates the key problems, systematically derives their mathematical solutions by pursuing a unified, asymptotic approach, and finally carefully examines these results by comparing them with the available experimental results. The asymptotic approach described here will be useful for the investigation of pattern formation phenomena occurring in a much broader class of inhomogeneous dynamical systems. In addition, the results on global stability and selection mechanisms of pattern formation will be of particular interest to researchers working on material processing and crystal growth. The stability mechanisms of a curved front and the pattern formation have been fundamental subjects in the areas of condensed-matter physics, materials science, crystal growth, and fluid mechanics for some time now. This book offers a stimulating and insightful introduction for all physicists, engineers and applied mathematicians working in the fields of soft condensed-matter physics, materials science, mechanical and chemical engineering, fluid dynamics, and nonlinear sciences.

For the last several years, the study of interfacial instability and pattern formation phenomena has preoccupied many researchers in the broad area of nonlinear science. These phenomena occur in a variety of dynamical sys tems far from equilibrium. In many practically very important physical sys tems some fascinating patterns are always displayed at the interface between solid and liquid or between two liquids. Two prototypes of these phenomena are dendrite growth in solidification and viscous fingering in a Hele-Shaw cell. These two phenomena occur in completely different scientific fields, but both are described by similar nonlinear free boundary problems of partial differential-equation systems; the boundary conditions on the interface for both cases contain a curvature operator involving the surface tension, which is nonlinear. Moreover, both cases raise the same challenging theoretical is sues, interfacial instability mechanisms and pattern selection, and it is now found that these issues can be solved by the same analytical approach. Thus, these two phenomena are regarded as special examples of a class of nonlinear pattern formation phenomena in nature, and they are the prominent topics of the new interdisciplinary field of nonlinear science. This research monograph is based on a series of lectures I have given at McGill University, Canada (1993-1994), Northwestern Poly technical In stitute, China (1994), Aachen University, Germany (1994), and the CRM summer school at Banff, Alberta, Canada (1995).

Convective flow in the liquid phase is always present in a realistic process of freezing and melting and may significantly affect the dynamics and results of the process. The study of the interplay of growth and convection flow during the solidification has been an important subject in the broad fields of materials science, condensed matter physics, fluid physics, micro-gravity science, etc. The present book is concerned with the dynamics of free dendritic growth with convective flow in the melt. It systematically presents the results obtained in terms of a unified asymptotic approach in the framework of the interfacial wave (IFW) theory. In particular, the book explores the effect of the various types of convection flow on the selection and pattern formation of dendritic growth based on the global stability analysis.

This book reviews the current state of the theory of pattern formation by a liquid-solid interface during crystal growth. It gives a pedagogical introduction to the subject, including experimental results, mathematical modeling and linear stability analysis. After highlighting the success of the theory in resolving the selection problem of dendritic growth, various new directions of research are presented in which progress has been made recently. These are the formation of nondendritic seaweed-like structures, growth of lamellar eutectics and rapid solidification. The interplay between analytic methods on the one hand (scaling arguments, asymptotic analysis, similarity equation, Sivashinsky singular expansion) and numerical calculations on the other (Newton method, dynamical schemes) is emphasized.

This is the second of three volumes containing the proceedings of the International Colloquium 'Free Boundary Problems: Theory and Applications', held in Montreal from June 13 to June 22, 1990. The main theme of this volume is the concept of free boundary problems associated with solids. The first free boundary problem, the freezing of water - the Stefan problem - is the prototype of solidification problems which form the main part of this volume. The two sections treting this subject cover a large variety of topics and procedures, ranging from a theoretical mathematical treatment of solvability to numerical procedures for practical problems. Some new and interesting problems in solid mechanics are discussed in the first section while in the last section the important new subject of solid-solid-phase transition is examined.