Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

I present a formalism and an computational scheme to quantify the dynamics of grain boundary migration in polycrystalline materials, applicable to three-dimensional microstructure data obtained from non-destructive coarsening experiments. I will describe a geometric technique of interface tracking using well-established optimization algorithms and demonstrate how, when coupled with very basic physical assumptions, one can effectively measure grain boundary energy density and mobility of a given misorientation type in the two-parameter subspace of boundary inclinations. By doing away with any specific model or parameterization for the energetics, I seek to have my analysis applicable to general anisotropies in energy and mobility. I present results in two proof-of-concept test cases, one first described in closed form by J. von Neumann more than half a century ago, and the other which assumes analytic but anisotropic energy and mobility known in advance.