Monte-Carlo Simulation of Grain Growth in <100> Fiber Textured Material

Monte-Carlo models are becoming increasingly popular for studying the temporal and spatial aspects of grain growth during the annealing of metals. For example, both normal and abnormal grain growth have been examined for metals with fine, equiaxed microstructure. In addition, research to establish the effect of anisotropic grainboundary energy and mobility on growth behavior has been undertaken as experimental and computation techniques to quantify such material properties have been developed. Another area in which Monte Carlo techniques may be especially useful relates to the microstructures that are developed during the heat treatment or heating prior to hot working of ingots. Such materials often have a variety of microstructures ranging from a surface chill zone of fine equiaxed grains, large areas of columnar grains that have grown parallel to the direction of heat extraction during solidification, and a central region in which a columnar-to-equiaxed transition has occurred. The equiaxed grains at both the surface and center usually have high angle boundaries with random misorientations. Similarly, the columnar regions tend to have boundaries with a range of misorientations. However, as a consequence of preferred growth of dendrites parallel to <100>, these columnar regions generally form fiber textures in which the common orientation is that along which solidification is most rapid, i.e., <100> in cubic metals.