MONTE CARLO SIMULATION OF GRAIN :GROWTH IN POLYCRYSTALLINE MATERIALS

Abstract

The modeling and computer simulation of grain growth in polycrystalline materials is gaining importance in recent times as it is one of the important microstructure features controls the mechanical and functional properties of materials. The driving force for grain growth is the lowering of the grain boundary energy. The polycrystalline materials with a very fine -grain size (sub-microns) subjected to thermal treatment are very prone for grain growth and have a strong tendency to transform into a polycrystal with a coarse grain and fewer interfaces. The aim of the present work is to understand the grain growth kinetics of polycrystalline materials using an improved Metropolis Monte Carlo technique with the energetics of the system described by Potts Model. In the Potts model, a continuum microstructure is bitmapped onto a lattice. During grain growth, the energy is determined by the interaction of a chosen point with the surrounding lattice points in a 2D-Square lattice and 3D cube lattice. The influence of temperature, anisotropy, and impurities on grain growth of polycrystalline materials in both 2D and 3D cases are studied in the present work. It is observed that the grain growth kinetics of 2D and 3D polycrystalline materials are in tandem with theoretical prediction for the isotropic case but it deviates for the anisotropic grains. The effect of impurities drag on grain growth of polycrystalline material is studied in detail and compared with Zener drag effect.