An accelerated scheme for solving inhomogeneous elasticity in phase-field method and application to Ni-based multi-component alloys

Abstract

On the way towards realistic predictions of various material properties for engineering structural materials, efficient computational simulations of microstructural evolution play an indispensable role. In the present work, an in-house phase-field code with inhomogeneous elasticity has been developed aiming to deal with precipitation processes for multi-component alloys with high efficiency. Two different numerical iterative algorithms, named as Model A and B, are implemented to solve inhomogeneous elastic equations. The resulting simulated morphology and energy evolutions under different conditions show consistency for these two algorithms. In order to perform simulation efficiently, a parallel technique based on CUDA (Computer Unified Device Architecture) architecture is used, which greatly improves the computational efficiency. After estimating the computational efficiency of different acceleration techniques for different grid sizes, Model A is extended to simulate concentration and morphology evolutions in the precipitation and rafting processes of γ′ phase in a Ni-based five-component alloy of Ni−Co−Al−Mo−W. Meanwhile, the CALPHAD method and related databases are linked to provide thermodynamic and diffusivity data. Finally, the computation costs of the parallel technique for different simulation scales are explored, testifying that this technique is capable of performing larger scale simulations for multi-component multi-phase structural materials.