Simulation of Microstructure Evolution during Shape Rolling with the Use of Frontal Cellular Automata

Abstract

The objective of the paper is an application of the model of the microstructure evolution based on three-dimensional cellular automata (CA) for hot shape rolling simulation. A short description of frontal cellular automata (FCA) is presented. The model contains two parts: the deformation and the microstructure evolution. The CA cells do not remain as undistorted cubes, but they are deformed according to the strain tensor. The independence of the grain growing from the shape and the sizes of the cell is ensured by the so-called “virtual front tracking”. The microstructural part of the model simulates two phenomena: the nucleation and the growth of nuclei. There are three issues considered in the paper: the creation of the initial microstructure, the recrystallization and the phase transformation. When recrystallization is simulated, the nucleation and the grain boundary migration depend on the deformation parameters such as: the temperature, the strain, the strain rate, the dislocation density and the crystallographic orientation. The nucleation during the phase transformation is a function of the cooling rate and the final microstructure. These phenomena along with the deformation can be modeled over a wide range of multi-stage deformation processes. The process of shape rolling is chosen as an example. The data needed for the FCA calculations is received from the modeling by the finite element method. The results of the simulation of the microstructure evolution, during the last three passes of the round bars rolling with the consequent phase transformation, are presented in the paper.