Our objective in the present work is to study the effect of convective flows, ranging from laminar to fully turbulent, on solute segregation in directional solidification configurations. To do so, numerical simulations performed in a model 2D lid driven cavity: the problem parameters, apart from the species molecular diffusion coefficient, are the lid and growth velocities. Purely diffusive to fully convective mass transport conditions are modelled in our parametric study. In parallel, a scaling analysis aiming at the determination of the solute boundary layer thickness is proposed. The results show that a single non-dimensional number, based on the interface stress, is able to capture the physics of the solute transport phenomena. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.