Developing grain boundary diagrams for multicomponent alloys

Impurity-based, premelting-like, intergranular films (IGFs, a common type of grain boundary complexion) can form in various materials and influence sintering, creep, and microstructure development. A thermodynamic framework is presented to forecast the formation and stability of these premelting-like grain boundary complexions (a.k.a. interfacial “phases” that are thermodynamically two dimensional) in multicomponent alloys to consider the interactions of multiple alloying elements. Key thermodynamic parameters that control the interfacial segregation and disordering behaviors have been identified and systematically examined. Subsequently, ternary and quaternary grain boundary diagrams have been computed and used to forecast the sintering behaviors of W–Ni–M (M = Fe, Co, Cr, Zr, Nb and Ti) and Mo–Si–B–M (M = Ni, Co and Fe) systems. This work supports a long-range scientific goal of extending bulk computational thermodynamics and CALPHAD methods to interfaces and developing grain boundary complexion (interfacial “phase”) diagrams as extensions to bulk phase diagrams, which can be a generally useful materials science tool.