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.