Abstract
Grain growth, a competitive growth of crystal grains accompanied by curvature-driven boundary migration, is one of the most fundamental phenomena in the context of metallurgy and other scientific disciplines. However, the true picture of grain growth is still controversial, even for the simplest (or ‘ideal’) case. This problem can be addressed only by large-scale numerical simulation. Here, we analyze ideal grain growth via ultra-large-scale phase-field simulations on a supercomputer for elucidating the corresponding authentic statistical behaviors. The performed simulations are more than ten times larger in time and space than the ones previously considered as the largest; this computational scale gives a strong indication of the achievement of true steady-state growth with statistically sufficient number of grains. Moreover, we provide a comprehensive theoretical description of ideal grain growth behaviors correctly quantified by the present simulations. Our findings provide conclusive knowledge on ideal grain growth, establishing a platform for studying more realistic growth processes.
Highlights
Microstructural coarsening during grain growth plays a significant role in the manufacturing of engineering materials, since their properties are largely affected by grain size.[1, 2] cellular pattern evolutions exhibiting common features with grain growth are ubiquitously observed in organic and inorganic matters of all aggregation states.[3]
We investigated the number of sample grains sufficient to obtain repeatable results for grain size distributions without large statistical bias and noise
The above figures confirm that grains generally exhibit equiaxed shapes, as expected for microstructures formed via ideal grain growth
Summary
Microstructural coarsening during grain growth plays a significant role in the manufacturing of engineering materials, since their properties are largely affected by grain size.[1, 2] cellular pattern evolutions exhibiting common features with grain growth are ubiquitously observed in organic and inorganic matters of all aggregation states.[3]. Among the various types of grain growth phenomena, ideal grain growth under the conditions of isotropic grain boundary energy and mobility is the most simplified but important one, and its understanding offers an essential model highlighting the effects of complicated factors present in real materials (e.g., anisotropy, lattice defects, solute, and additional phases). For more than half a century, many researchers have attempted to develop a theoretical model of ideal growth. A conclusive model has yet to be established especially for three-dimensional systems, largely because a ‘correct answer’ for testing the validity of theoretical predictions is still not available, despite a significant amount of studies devoted to the observation and characterization of ideal grain growth
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