Simulations of Polycrystalline Grain Growth with Unequal Surface Energies

A new algorithm for simulating the well-known Mullins model for polycrystalline grain growth is presented. This algorithm extends the distance function-based diffusion-generated motion algorithm to the case where the surface energy between each pair of grains may be specified. Well-resolved simulations beginning with over 500,000 grains in two dimensions and 64,000 grains in three dimensions are performed. The effect of the initial texture (e.g. fiber texture or random texture) and the form of the surface energy (as a function of misorientation) on the evolution of the misorientation distribution is studied. A new statistic, the surface energy distribution, is proposed and demonstrated to help predict the evolution of the misorientation distribution.