Effect of second-phase particle morphology on grain growth kinetics

Second-phase particles are often employed to inhibit grain growth in polycrystalline metals and ceramics. In this work, we studied the effect of second-phase particle morphology on the effectiveness of inhibiting grain boundary migration using the phase-field method. We employed a multi-order parameter phase-field model in combination with an efficient memory allocation strategy which allows large-scale and coalescence-free grain growth simulations. We analyzed the dependence of pinning forces on the particle size and shape, and performed computer simulations of grain growth in the presence of second-phase particles with different sizes and varying aspect ratios. We also discuss the relationship between the pinned grain size and size distributions. (C) 2009 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.