Modified mean field models of normal grain growth Original Research Article

Models of normal grain growth can either start from a postulated kinetic law for individual grains and yield a distribution of grain sizes or they can start from a postulated distribution and the kinetic law may be derived. Both methods are studied and a whole family of distributions based on new kinetic laws are derived using the first method. Both methods have recently been applied using Onsager’s extremum principle but it is now shown that more classical procedures are sufficient. Kinetic laws give an indication of what physical factors govern the growth or shrinkage of individual grains. A Rayleigh’s distribution seems to indicate that large grains are surrounded by grains smaller than the critical size and small grains are surrounded by grains larger than the critical size. The effects of the new family of kinetic laws on the development of grain size distributions are studied by numerical simulations.