CONTINUUM THEORY OF THERMALLY-INDUCED PHASE-TRANSITIONS BASED ON AN ORDER-PARAMETER

Using balance laws for accretive force and energy in conjunction with constitutive equations restricted so as to be compatible with the second law, we develop a theory for the study of solid-liquid and solid-solid phase transitions where accretion and heat conduction dominate mass diffusion and deformation. Our theory furnishes generalizations of the Ginzburg-Landau equation and the phase-field equations, generalizations that allow for anisotropically induced preferred growth and nonlinear transition kinetics.