Phase field simulating grain refinement of magnesium alloy by thin strip second phase particles

Abstract

The study has investigated the grain growth of AZ31 magnesium alloy matrix with fine strip second phase particles, by the phase field model in the real space and time, through introducing free energy equation, and compared with the simulated results containing spherical particles. The results showed that both the thin strip ellipsoidal particles and the cuboid particles have grain refinement effect on the microstructure, moreover, when the content of the second phase particles is the same, the refining effect of thin strip particles could be better than the spherical particles on the matrix microstructure. This study provides the real scale phase field models to research the grain refinement by second phase particles.