Abstract
Grain boundary grooves are common features on polycrystalline solid–liquid interfaces. Their local microstructure can be closely approximated as a “variational” groove, the theoretical profile for which is analyzed here for its Gibbs–Thomson thermo-potential distribution. The distribution of thermo-potentials for a variational groove exhibits gradients tangential to the solid–liquid interface. Energy fluxes stimulated by capillary-mediated tangential gradients are divergent and thus capable of redistributing energy on real or simulated grain boundary grooves. Moreover, the importance of such capillary-mediated energy fields on interfaces is their influence on stability and pattern formation dynamics. The capillary-mediated field expected to be present on a stationary grain boundary groove is verified quantitatively using the multiphase-field approach. Simulation and post-processing measurements fully corroborate the presence and intensity distribution of interfacial cooling, proving that thermodynamically-consistent numerical models already support, without any modification, capillary perturbation fields, the existence of which is currently overlooked in formulations of sharp interface dynamic models.
Highlights
The purpose of this study is to determine by simulation and measurement whether or not interfacial gradients of the Gibbs–Thomson potential distributed along grain boundary grooves stimulate an energy field along a groove’s solid–liquid interface
The presence of capillary-mediated energy fields was recently postulated [1] to exist on virtually all curved solid–liquid interfaces—both moving and stationary—and provide cooling and heating sources that stimulate complex pattern formation
We identified 3 phase-fields to represent crystal-1 (φ1 ), crystal-2 (φ2 )—i.e., the two grains separated symmetrically by the grain boundary—and their common pure melt phase (φ3 ), configured as the grain boundary grooves in Figures 1 and 2
Summary
The purpose of this study is to determine by simulation and measurement whether or not interfacial gradients of the Gibbs–Thomson potential distributed along grain boundary grooves stimulate an energy field along a groove’s solid–liquid interface. A stationary grain boundary groove provides a naturally stable solid–liquid microstructure on which a critical test of the theory predicting the presence of such fields can be performed. The curved configuration of static, solid–liquid grain boundary grooves suggests on the basis of prior analysis [1] that there should be capillary-mediated interface energy fields present, which remain persistently active, despite the groove’s stationarity and the apparent “inertness” of its microstructure
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