Effect of grain boundary width on grain growth in a diffuse-interface field model

Abstract

The effect of grain boundary width on grain growth in the diffuse-interface field model is studied by analytical formulations and computer simulations. It has been shown that the grain growth kinetics will be slowed down if the number of grid points is insufficient to resolve the grain boundaries. When there are more then seven grid points in grain boundary regions, the grain growth is independent of the grain boundary width and the motion of a diffuse grain boundary is identical to its sharp-interface limit. The moments of grain side distributions reach stable values in the dynamically scaling regime and they are independent of the grain boundary width. It has been shown that, in addition to lattice anisotropy, coalescence affect the topological distributions.