Phase field modeling of equilibrium shapes of precipitate and growth instabilities in the presence of coherency stresses

Abstract

Precipitation-hardened alloys are one of the most technologically signiand#64257;cant materials that are used for structural applications, where an important mode of strengthening is due to the impediment to the movement of dislocations. The alloys, particularly possessing coherent precipitate-matrix interface, give rise to the coherency strain and#64257;elds producing the coherency stresses in the matrix, which further interact with the dislocations to provide necessary strengthening. In this context, the control of the shape and distribution of the precipitates as a function of material and process parameters is important. In this thesis, we propose a diand#64256;use-interface approach in order to compute the equilibrium shape of precipitates, which also allows us to minimize the grid-anisotropy related issues that occur in the classical sharp interface methods...