The effect of an anisotropy of grain boundary mobility upon the dynamics, morphology and topology of grain growth was investigated by performing analytical and numerical calculations of a generalized anisotropic phase-field model. The dependence of grain boundary mobility upon inclination and misorientation was included. Unlike the isotropic case, where a single grain in a polycrystalline system grew linearly with time, it was found that the growth rate of a single n-sided grain in the anisotropic case was time-dependent. The growth rate of the average area was also time-dependent; except for the limiting cases of textured and randomly-oriented grain structures. A strong grain-shape anisotropy developed in the textured case; thus indicating that the grains grew in a non self-similar manner. In the intermediate case, the deviation from a growth exponent of unity was of the order of 10%; whereas the size and edge distributions were similar to those of an isotropic system. The results indicated that statistical self-similarity might not be required for linear growth kinetics, and time-invariant size and edge distributions.

Grain Growth in Systems with Anisotropic Boundary Mobility - Analytical Model and Computer Simulation. A.Kazaryan, Y.Wang, S.A.Dregia, B.R.Patton: Physical Review B, 2001, 63[18], 184102 (11pp)