Grain boundary saturation and grain growth

Abstract

In nanoscale alloys with strong segregation tendency, the grain size at metastable thermodynamic equilibrium is determined by the grain boundary energy, the enthalpy change of grain boundary segregation, and the solute excess of an equivalent grain boundary monolayer at saturation. Good agreement between experiment and thermodynamic description has been found with respect to the temperature-dependence of the metastable grain size. (C) 2004 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.