Mechanical interactions between dendrites and their parent melt are usually considered insignificant. [1] However, during rapid solidification the twin conditions required to produce mechanical damage may exist: high flow velocities and very fine dendrites. In this communication we present evidence of a deformed dendritic structure that arose during rapid solidification. We show that at the high growth rates involved (2.3 m s ±1 ), thermo-solutal advection, which is the dominant mechanism of dendritic deformation during conventional semi-solid processing, [2] is unlikely to have a significant effect. A model for the skin stress resulting from flow around a family of realistically shaped dendrites is presented and we find that, within a narrow undercooling range about a local minimum in the tip radius, mechanical deformation is likely.Experimental evidence for deformed dendritic structures being produced by rapid solidification comes from a recent paper by Battersby, Cochrane, and Mullis, in which the results of a comparative study of the solidification of Cu, Cu±O, and Cu±Sn melts were presented. [3] Samples of approximately 5 mm in diameter were undercooled by being encased in a molten soda lime glass flux under an inert atmosphere. Samples were melted by induction heating of a graphite susceptor. Nucleation was initiated at a predefined undercooling by touching the sample in a well-defined position with a thin needle. By cutting viewing slots in the susceptor the recalescence front could be observed directly and its velocity measured using a linear photo-diode array. In one of these samples, a Cu±3 wt.-% Sn alloy undercooled by 73 K, there was evidence of a deformed dendritic structure, which is shown in Figure 1. The velocity of the solidification front in this sample was measured to be 2.3 m s ±1 . This deformed structure is likely to have arisen because of differential flow between the parent melt and the solid dendritic skeleton while the sample was in the semi-solid state.Many of the techniques of rapid solidification processing provide high fluid velocities in the melt. From the measured recalescence velocity and the absence of shrinkage voids in the as-solidified Cu±3 wt.-% Sn sample, we deduce that the shrinkage flow required to maintain continuity at the solid± liquid interface was V s » 0.09 m s ±1 . Estimates of the flows induced in undercooled melts by electromagnetic stirring are typically 0.3 m s ±1 , [4] although in the Cu±3 wt.-% Sn sample reported this may be reduced by a factor of 2 or 3 because of partial electromagnetic screening by the graphite susceptor. Consequently, we believe that interdendritic flow velocities in the sample of the order 0.1 m s ±1 may not be unreasonable.Here we consider two mechanisms that could give rise to the deformed dendritic structures observed: thermo-solutal advection and direct mechanical damage. These two mechanisms give, in principle, experimentally distinguishable predictions in that thermo-solutal advection predicts that the dendrite bends into the flow (...