Triple Junction Mobility: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Abstract

We present a molecular dynamics simulation study of the migration of individual grain boundary triple junctions. The simulation cell was designed to achieve steady state migration. Observations of the triple junction angle and grain boundary profiles confirm that steady state was achieved. The static, equilibrium grain boundary triple junction angles and the dynamic triple junction angles were measured as a function of grain size and grain boundary misorientation. In most cases, the static and dynamic triple junction angles are nearly identical, while substantial deviations were observed for low Σ boundary misorientations. The intrinsic, steady-state triple junction mobilities were extracted from measurements of the rate of change of grain boundary area in simulations with and without triple junctions. The triple junction velocity is found to be inversely proportional to the grain size width. The normalized triple junction mobility exhibits strong variations with boundary misorientation, with strong minima at misorientations corresponding to orientations corresponding to low values of Σ. The triple junctions create substantial drag on grain boundary migration at these low mobility misorientations.