Papers by Keyword: Abnormal Grain Growth

Abstract: This paper reviews our recent investigations on grain growth in ceramics. Grain growth behavior has been found to be governed by the grain boundary structure: normal growth with a stationary relative grain size distribution for rough boundaries and non-normal (nonstationary) growth for faceted boundaries. Based on the concept of nonlinear migration of faceted boundaries, the mixed control model of grain growth is introduced and the principle of microstructural evolution is deduced. This principle states that various types of grain growth behavior are predicted as a result of the coupling effect between the maximum driving force for growth and the critical driving force for appreciable migration of the boundary. A wealth of experimental results supports the theoretical predictions of grain growth behavior, showing the generality of the suggested principle of microstructural evolution. Application of this principle is also demonstrated for the fabrication of single crystals as well as polycrystals with desired microstructures.

Abstract: Three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations with real grain orientations are performed to study the role of precipitates and sub-boundaries in the abnormal grain growth. According to the simulation results, sub-boundaries in the abnormally growing grain and precipitates in the matrix grains are necessary for the abnormal grain growth. The simulation results can be best explained by the mechanism of sub-boundary enhanced solid state wetting. The simulated microstructure is very similar to that experimentally observed.

Abstract: The thermal groove technique has been used to measure relative grain boundary energies in two 100 ppm Ca-doped yttria samples. The first has a normal grain size distribution and the boundaries have a bilayer of segregated Ca. In the second sample, there is a combination of large grains and small grains. The boundaries around the large grains are known to have an intergranular film. The results show that the relative energies of boundaries in the sample with normal grain growth and the boundaries around small grains far from larger grains in the second sample are similar. Also, boundaries surrounding the largest grains and small grains immediately adjacent to them have the same and significantly lower energies. The results indicate that grain boundaries with an intergranular film have a lower energy than those with bilayer segregation and that the intergranular film extends beyond the periphery of the largest grains, but not throughout the entire sample.

Abstract: Texture change during grain growth in Fe-3%Si non-oriented electrical steel was investigated. Cold rolled steel, 0.35mm in thickness, was annealed and recrystallized as an initial structure. Normal grain growth and abnormal grain growth occurred by additional annealing. {111} was dominant in the initial texture. However {100} component, which was not in majority in the initial structure, became stronger after normal grain growth. It was revealed that an average grain size of {100} in the initial structure was bigger than those of other components by analysis of the EBSD data,. Therefore, it is concluded that {100} strengthened after normal grain growth due to its size advantage. On the other hand, {111} components became more stronger after abnormal grain growth. It is inferred that another mechanism of the texture change worked in abnormal grain growth.

Abstract: Abstract. Ferritic-martensitic steels like Eurofer-97 are candidate structural materials for future fusion reactors. In the tempered state, this steel contains fine particles dispersed in the ferritic matrix. The aim of this work is to investigate abnormal grain growth in Eurofer-97 steel. The microstructural evolution was followed by isothermal annealing between 200 and 800°C (ferritic phase field) after cold rolling to 70, 80, and 90% reductions. Representative samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy in the backscattered electron mode. Microtexture was evaluated by electron backscattered diffraction. We propose a mechanism based on the size advantage acquired by nuclei with misorientation angles above 45º relative to their nearest neighbors to explain abnormal grain growth. Abnormal grain growth textures have components belonging to the α- and γ-fibers with predominance of {111}, {111}, and {100}.

Abstract: Grain growth kinetics in an AISI 347 stainless steel with Nb content up to 0.7%wt was studied during the isothermal holding in the temperature range of 1100-1270°C for various periods. Abnormal grain growth was observed even in the presence of a large amount of precipitates. The kinetics of normal grain growth was tracked by metallographic measurements and fitted by the classical modeling, which led to two important parameters of activation energy Q and growth exponent n derived. Both of them are larger than the usual values for grain growth in the Nb-microalloyed steels due to the much larger content of Nb in the present steel.

Abstract: Abnormal grain growth (AGG), which is also called the secondary recrystallization, often takes place after primary recrystallization of deformed polycrystalline materials. A famous example is the evolution of the Goss texture after secondary recrystallization of Fe-3%Si steel. A selective AGG of Goss grains has remained a puzzle over 70 years in the metallurgy community since its first discovery by Goss in 1935. We suggested the sub-boundary enhanced solid-state wetting as a mechanism of selective AGG of Goss grains. According to this mechanism, if Goss grains have sub-boundaries of low energy, they have an exclusively high probability to grow by solid-state wetting along a triple junction compared with other grains without sub-boundaries. This aspect has been confirmed by Monte-Carlo and Phase Field Model simulations. The simulations showed that if the abnormally-growing grain has a high fraction of low energy boundaries with the matrix grains, it favors the sub-boundary enhanced solid-state wetting and produces many island and peninsular grains frequently observed near the growth front of abnormally-growing Goss grains. For example, the {111}<112> orientation has a S9 relationship with a Goss grain. Therefore, grains with the {111}<112> orientation provide a favorable condition for sub-boundary enhanced solid-state wetting. Three or four-sided grains with convex-inward boundaries, which are observed on a two-dimensional section of polycrystalline structures, are not shrinking but are growing, indicating that they are growing by wetting along a triple junction. These and other microstructural evidences of solid-state wetting could be observed relatively easily near the growth front of abnormally-growing Goss grains. The existence of sub-boundaries exclusively in abnormally-growing Goss grains has been experimentally confirmed. In order to understand why only Goss grains have sub-boundaries, the cold rolling process of the hot-rolled Fe-3%Si steel was analyzed by finite element method (FEM). The analysis showed that a small portion of Goss grains formed during hot rolling survives after cold rolling; the survived Goss grains have the lowest stored energy and are expected to undergo only recovery without recrystallization, producing sub-boundaries.

Abstract: The theoretical description of grain growth was based for many years on the so-calledspherical model. The spherical model represents a polyhedral grain with N faces and a volume, V ,by a sphere with an equal volume having the equivalent grain radius, R. That model leads to severalinteresting results concerning normal and abnormal grain growth as well as grain size distribution.Nevertheless, representation of grains by spheres entails a fundamental limitation: namely, all topo-logical information of the polyhedral grain is forsaken. The rich variety of grain shapes occurringin three-dimensional polycrystalline networks, however, makes their energetic and kinetic analysesextremely difficult. To simplify analyses of isotropic polycrystals, average N-hedra and generalizedN-hedra ANHs or GNHs .N D 3; 4; 5;1/ were created as a set of regular polyhedra, consisting ofN identical faces that act as topological proxies for analyzing irregular grains containing N mixedfaces. The adoption of ANH/GNH as representations of polyhedral grains led to further progress inour understanding of grain growth, particularly those aspects related to topological behavior. This pa-per summarizes some recent advances of representing polyhedral grains by ANHs/GNHs rather thanby spheres.

Abstract: The conditions for the nucleation of abnormal grain growth were investigated using a three dimensional vertex dynamics model. Potentially abnormal growing grains characterized by their size and topological class, respectively and embedded in an isotropic grain ensemble were subjected to annealing varying their grain boundary properties. The simulation results indicate that the classical mean field approaches underestimate the role of the grain boundary energy advantage, while the impact of a mobility advantage is overestimated.

Abstract: The selective abnormal grain growth (AGG) of Goss grains in Fe-3%Si steel was investigated using a parallel Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation based on the new concept of sub-boundary enhanced solid-state wetting. Goss grains with low angle sub-boundaries will induce solid-state wetting against matrix grains with a moderate variation in grain boundary energy. Three-dimensional MC simulations of microstructure evolution with textures and grain boundary distributions matched to experimental data is using in this study.