Engineering Commons^™

The Influence Of Crystallographic Constraints On Percolation, Jarrod Lund, Oliver Johnson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Within polycrystalline materials (e.g. metals and ceramics), grain boundary networks (GBN) influence the effective properties such as diffusion, conductivity, and crack and creep propagation¹. In precision applications such as jet engine turbine blades and solid oxide fuel cells, understanding and characterizing GBN are essential for better design. Modeling GBN allow for better exploration of the complex space of possible networks (figure 1d)². By modeling grains in a honeycomb lattice (figure 1a), grain boundaries can be identified by their misorientation angle (figure 1b). This can be a key indicator of the grain boundary’s properties. By combining information …