Effect of differential diffusivity on precipitate growth in ternary two-phase alloys: a phase field study

Abstract

At equilibrium, ternary two-phase alloys have a single degree of freedom at a given temperature according to Gibbs Phase Rule. This feature manifests itself during precipitate growth in an interesting way. A difference in diffusivities of solute elements can lead to a difference in their fluxes and hence a different local equilibrium at the interface compared to the situation of both the solutes having equal diffusivities. We have studied the effect of diffusivity ratio (:) on the precipitate growth kinetics in the scaling regime and choice of local equilibrium at the interface during growth in scaling regime using our phase field model.