COARSENING OF ELASTICALLY INTERACTING COHERENT PARTICLES .2. SIMULATIONS OF PREFERENTIAL COARSENING AND PARTICLE MIGRATIONS

Three-dimensional multiparticle coarsening simulations have been performed in order to examine the effect of particle misfit on the microstructural evolution of two-phase crystalline systems. The particles are assumed to be coherent, spherical and possess a tetragonal misfit. The system is assumed to be elastically isotropic and homogeneous. The method of multipole tensors in its quadrupole approximation is used to solve the coupled elastic and diffusion problem. The elastic interaction between particles arising from the misfit strains leads to a high degree of particle alignment along elastically favorable orientations. The development of such strong spatial correlations can be understood in terms of such phenomena as enhanced coarsening of unfavorably oriented particles, retarded and inverse coarsening of favorably oriented ones and systematic particle migrations.