Abnormal Grain Growth Topology and Kinetics

One common point amongst extant theories of abnormal grain growth (AGG) is that they treat this phenomenon in terms of the relative grain size, or grain radius, of the abnormal grains. Topological and metrical quantities of abnormal grains, such as the number of their faces, or their grain boundary curvature, are taken into account only indirectly through the grain size itself. This paper, by contrast, treats AGG in terms of concepts, that include both the boundary curvature and the number of faces of the abnormal grain. Two cases are examined: 1) AGG, in which the matrix grains are fully pinned, so normal grain growth cannot occur; 2) AGG in which the matrix grains are free to evolve, so that normal grain growth ensues simultaneously in the matrix.