Simulation of microstructural evolution during directional annealing with variable boundary energy and mobility Original Research Article

Microstructural evolution during directional annealing has been investigated with variable grain boundary energy and mobility. The boundary energy and mobility were expressed as a function of misorientation between grains and incorporated into a front-tracking grain-growth simulation model. Development of columnar grain structure becomes more difficult with anisotropic boundary properties with the proportion of low angle boundaries increasing with increasing hot zone width. The critical hot zone velocity for the propagation of a columnar grain structure in an anisotropic system is expressed as a function of the boundary misorientation angle. The grain aspect ratio is shown to increase and the texture becomes more pronounced with decreasing hot zone velocity.