Modeling of dual-phase grain structure in Ti-6Al-4V during isothermal and non-isothermal heat treatment using cellular automata

In the titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V the dual-phase grain structure, which forms during thermo-mechanical processing, is of high importance due to its effect on the mechanical properties. In general the most significant microstructural parameters are the amount of alpha and beta phase as well as their grain size. For this reason a new cellular automata method (CA) was developed to predict the evolving grain structure during isothermal and non-isothermal heat treatment. The probabilistic CA model is based on the diffusion controlled movement of grain and phase boundaries. During temperature changes an algorithm is adjusting alpha and beta phase fraction to maintain equilibrium phase values. Hence, the CA is capable to calculate grain coarsening as well as grain growth and shrinking in the two-phase area while heating and isothermal holding at forging temperature. The initial microstructure can be imported form virtual created microstructures, real micrographs and EBSD-images. The results are mean grain diameters, grain size distributions and virtually simulated microstructures which can be easily compared with real micrographs. The predicted microstructures are showing a good correlation to data in literature and experimental results.