Coupled Grain Growth and Precipitation Modeling in Multi-Phase Systems

Abstract

In this work, we utilize recent software for precipitation kinetics simulation and couple it with models for grain growth. Basis of our studies is the thermo-kinetic software MatCalc, which has been designed for simulation of the evolution of precipitates in general multi-component multi-phase alloy systems. Grain growth approaches of different complexity are incorporated into the precipitation kinetics framework, investigated with respect to their coupling behavior with precipitation and precipitate dissolution and, finally, benchmarked on typical grain growth problems of industrial practice. The example presented in this work comprises austenite grain growth studies accompanying TiN and NbC precipitation/dissolution during austenitization of a Ti/Nb microalloyed steel. It is demonstrated that the present approach represents a versatile tool for analysis of simultaneous grain growth and precipitation in industrially important alloy systems.