Bounding box framework for efficient phase field simulation of grain growth in anisotropic systems

A sparse bounding box algorithm is extended to perform efficient phase field simulations of grain growth in anisotropic systems. The extended bounding box framework allows to attribute different properties to different grain boundary types of a polycrystalline microstructure and can be combined with explicit, implicit or semi-implicit time stepping strategies. To illustrate the applicability of the software, the simulation results of a case study are analysed. They indicate the impact of a misorientation dependent boundary energy formulation on the evolution of the misorientation distribution of the grain boundary types and on the individual growth rates of the grains as a function of the number of grain faces.

Research highlights► Efficient grain growth simulation algorithm is extended to anisotropic systems. ► The extended framework allows heterogeneous description of boundary properties. ► A case study indicates the impact of anisotropic boundary energy on grain growth.