The Effects of Structure Orientation on the Growth of Fe₂B Boride by Multi-Phase-Field Simulation

Abstract

A morphological evolution of the growth of Fe₂B boride on steel substrate has been investigated using two dimensional (2D) multi-phase-field (MPF) simulations. In order to evaluate competitive growth between boride seeds during the coating process, variations on boride seed orientation have been implemented. In addition, in order to have anisotropy growth of boride, anisotropy of interfacial energy is considered on the evaluation of phase-field evolution. It was observed that boride seed with structure orientation of 90° shows a preferential growth as compared with the growth of boride seeds at other orientations. On the other hand, competitive growth between boride seeds at different crystal orientations can also be observed, where boride seeds approaching a preferential orientation angle grow faster and suppress the growth of boride seeds at the lower orientation angle. Both of these present observations agree with previous experimental observations that boride seeds tend to grow perpendicular to the substrate surface and the growth of boride seeds in this direction suppress growth in other directions. Additionally, it was observed that the preferential growth of boride is independent of the initial size of the boride seed.