Microstructure Modeling and Simulation

This repository contains a program to generate microstructures using a site-saturation condition and simulate grain growth using the Monte Carlo Potts Model. The generated microstructures can be used as initial conditions for the grain growth simulation, which can be used to study the evolution of grain boundaries over time.

micro_w600_c2_mhalton_o1500_t00010.mp4

Installation

1. Download repository:

   Without Git:

   curl.exe -LJO https://github.com/Neelfrost/microstructure-mas/archive/refs/heads/main.zip; Expand-Archive -Force .\microstructure-mas-main.zip .; cd .\microstructure-mas-main
   

   With Git:

   git clone https://github.com/Neelfrost/microstructure-mas; cd .\microstructure-mas
   

2. Install using pip:

   pip install .
   

Usage

mmas.exe --help

usage: mmas [-h] [-w int] [-c int] [-o int] [-m {pseudo,sobol,halton,latin}] [-T float] [-b float] [-g float]
            [--simulate] [--color] [--snapshot int] [--save] [--load str]

Microstructure Modeling and Simulation. Generate microstructures using site-saturation condition, and simulate grain
growth using Monte Carlo Potts Model.

options:
-h, --help            Show this message and exit.
-w, --width           Set the application window width. (default: 500)
-c, --cell-size       Define the grid cell size. Lower values result in sharper boundaries. (default: 5, recommended range: 1-10)
-o, --orientations    Specify the initial number of grains. Higher values produce smaller grains. (default: 100)
-m, --method          Choose the seed generation algorithm. Allowed values are: pseudo, sobol, halton, latin. (default: halton)
-T, --temperature     Set the simulation temperature. Higher values increase the likelihood of unfavorable grain boundary migration. (default: 0, recommended range: 0-2)
-b, --boltz           Specify the Boltzmann constant. (default: 1)
-g, --grain           Set the grain boundary energy. (default: 1)
--simulate            Enable grain growth simulation. (default: false)
--color               Display grains in color instead of grayscale. (default: false)
--snapshot            Save snapshots of the microstructure at specified intervals (in seconds). Without simulation, only one snapshot is saved. (default: never)
--save                Save microstructure data to a file. (default: false)
--load                Load microstructure data from a file. This option can override or be combined with other options like --temperature, --grain, --boltz, --simulate,
                      --color, and --snapshot.
-hb, --highlight-boundaries
                      Process snapshots of a microstructure from a specified folder to extract and display only grain boundaries. The processed snapshots are saved with
                      highlighted grain boundaries, removing the original colored grain representation.Note: This requires imagemagick (https://imagemagick.org) to be
                      installed.

The program parameters, such as the number of grains, and the temperature of the Potts Model, can be adjusted as per above.

Resulting Microstructures

Pseudo	Sobol

Halton	Latin Hypercube

Limitations

The program is intended to provide a qualitative understanding of the grain growth process, and is not intended to be used for quantitative predictions or engineering applications.

References

1. Paulo Blikstein, André Paulo Tschiptschin, Monte Carlo Simulation of Grain Growth.
2. S. Sista And T. Debroy, Three-Dimensional Monte Carlo Simulation of Grain Growth in Zone-Refined Iron.
3. N. Maazi, Conversion of Monte Carlo Steps to Real Time for Grain Growth Simulation.