Accelerated Potts model for grain growth – Application to an IF steel

Abstract

A modification of the Potts model for grain growth is presented. We add to the site energy a grain size factor that favors growth of large grains and whose magnitude has been optimized with respect to various aspects. The motivation for such a modification as well as the consequences in term of calculation speed are presented. The capabilities of this modified model are checked by comparing several characteristics of the microstructures obtained after various grain growth simulations with experimental data obtained for an IF steel. One large EBSD map, made at the end of the primary recrystallization, is used directly as the initial image for the calculations. A second EBSD map, obtained after grain growth (with a mean diameter of the grains about twice the initial value) was used for comparisons between the simulations and the experiment. The grain size distribution, the grain boundary character distribution and the crystallographic texture are reproduced rather well with this modified model using a moderate grain size factor effect. Also the speedup of the calculation is quite significant.