Modeling Grain Boundary Damage Evolution in As-Measured 3D Microstructure

Abstract

In recent years we have seen a development of novel experimental techniques that enable one to non-destructively characterize polycrystalline microstructures. These techniques hold significant advantages over approaches like serial sectioning since the specimen is not destroyed in the characterization process. This is of immense value in advancing our understanding of materials and multiscale computational models. In particular, processes at the small length scales like the initiation and early development of grain boundary damage can now be measured more closely while the resulting simulations can now be directly compared to the experimental data. The task is, however, far from being simple as extremely complex geometry needs to be coupled with advance constitutive models for the bulk grain material and the grain boundaries themselves need to be combined. In this work a model, based on a X-ray diffraction contrast tomography data of a stainless steel wire with a diameter of 0.4 mm is presented. 3D topology and crystallographic orientation of individual grains are directly transferred into a finite element model. Grain boundary damage initialization and early development is then explored for a number of cases, ranging from isotropic elasticity up to crystal plasticity constitutive laws for the bulk grain material. In all cases the grain boundaries are modeled using the cohesive zone approach. Also, the stability of the simulations and measures aimed at improving it are reported upon.