Anisotropic grain boundary area and energy distributions in tungsten

Describing microstructure evolution in tungsten requires a quantitative description of the anisotropic grain boundary energy. We present a grain boundary energy function for tungsten that specifies the en-ergy of an arbitrary boundary given its five macroscopic crystallographic parameters. A comparison of measured grain boundary areas and the grain boundary energies given by the function at the Sigma 11, Sigma 17b, and Sigma 33a misorientations, which are problematic to determine by measurement or atomistic calculations, reveals inverse correlations that are similar to what have been observed in other metals. (C) 2021 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study introduces a function for the grain boundary energy of tungsten, allowing the energy distribution of boundaries to be described by crystallographic parameters. The comparison between measured grain boundary areas and energies at difficult-to-determine misorientations shows inverse correlations, similar to observations in other metals.