Phase field simulation of the lamellar precipitation in the TiC-ZrC system

TiC-ZrC system with a high hardness is a promising material being widely used in processing and manufacturing industries. The effect of elastic strain on the formation of lamellar microstructure was investigated in the present work through the methodology combing our thermodynamic data and two-dimensional Cahn-Hilliard/elastic strain energy model. It is shown that elastic induced lattice distortion and stress field at the boundaries affect the precipitation process. The simulation results agree well with the previous experimental results in terms of the variation of the periodicity for the elemental distribution and the morphology of regularity for lamellar microstructure. It is demonstrated that phase field method coupled with thermodynamic database can make precipitation models to access those proven thermodynamic models, which can be applied to simulation of various material systems.