3D Monte-Carlo simulation of texture-controlled grain growth

Abstract

A three-dimensional (3D) Monte-Carlo (MC) routine was developed to quantify the interaction of grain growth and texture development during annealing. The program included special software to enable the input of the initial grain structure and texture and incorporated a description of the misorientation-dependence of the grain-boundary mobility. Outputs from the model quantified the evolving texture in terms of pole figures or crystallite orientation distribution functions and statistics on the grain structure such as the grain-size distribution and boundary-misorientation distribution function. The MC routine was applied to establish grain growth and texture development in materials with random or strongly textured starting conditions and isotropic or anisotropic grain-boundary mobility. Depending on the starting condition and material properties, normal grain growth or a behavior characterized by alternating cycles of fast and slow grain growth was predicted.