| Abstract Scope |
Phase transformations in solid materials are driven by a combination of thermodynamics and kinetics. Modeling at the atomistic scale often naturally incorporates the various driving forces and kinetics including strong directional anisotropies, but is severely limited in timescale. The phase field method has proven a valuable tool in bringing many of the key thermodynamics and kinetics up to the mesoscale where longer simulation times can show valuable material physics. However, anisotropy in interface energies as well as in kinetics have been difficult to reproduce in the phase field method. We will present the spherical Gaussian method developed to overcome this deficiency in modeling real materials anisotropy. This method is used in several materials, which will be presented as example cases. Previously, many materials could not be modeled accurately above the atomic scale, this new method opens up a wide variety of application opportunities to study materials at higher length scales. |