A micromechanical model of phase boundary movement during solid–solid phase transformations

Summary  Understanding the kinetics of phase boundary movement is of major concern in e.g. martensitic transformation in related engineering applications. The main goal of this paper is to develop such kinetics on the basis of thermodynamic principles at the material microlevel. After a short literature survey in the introduction, the jump condition and thermodynamic force on the interface are discussed based on laws of conservation and thermodynamics. This leads to a relation for the driving force of the transformation front. In particular, the propagating front of a phase-transforming sphere within an elastic-plastic medium is considered. Due to density change, which is implicitly expressed in the transformation volume strain, strains and accompanying stresses are induced which hamper the propagation and influence the transformation kinetics. Together with the latent heat, the heat due to plastic dissipation occurs as a source term in the heat conduction equation. Since kinetics are influenced by temperature, the heat conduction equation and the kinetics equation are coupled. Using Green's function techniques, an integral equation is derived and solved numerically. The results of a parameter study are discussed. Received 10 February 2000; accepted for publication 18 October 2000