The Application of Phase Field Method in Microstructure Evolution Simulation

Abstract

The physical properties and mechanical behaviour of metals are determined by their microstructure frequently. The microstructure is referred to the size, shape and spatial arrangement of phases, grains, etc. These microstructure features have the mesoscopic length scale. How to obtain the desired microstructure is one main task of metal alloy design. However, it is difficult because the microstructure evolution is influenced by the chemical driving force during phase transformation, the composition of the alloy, etc. With the development of computing power and computer modelling, the computational material science is playing an important role in the microstructure design. Especially the kinetic phase field method is a powerful tool which is fast developed and widely used in these years. The phase field method is a phenomenological approach based on classical thermodynamic and kinetic theories. It describes a microstructure by using field variables. In this paper, the basic principle and application of this method are presented.