Monte Carlo simulation of microstructure evolution during thermo-mechanical rolling of steel using grid computing technology

Abstract

A Monte Carlo (MC) simulation methodology using high performance computing (HPC) has been proposed to characterize grain growth kinetics and recrystallisation phenomena during hot rolling of C-Mn and TRIP steels. The simulation framework comprises of mesoscale modelling of evolution of grain growth and microstructure incorporating the system energetics of grain boundary energy and stored energy which are essentially the driving force for the evolution process. An in-house MC computer code has been developed and implemented in the GARUDA grid. This facilitated achieving faster convergence of the MC algorithm for a given lattice structure. The simulated grain growth and microstructure evolution have been successfully validated with the published data. It is inferred that the MC simulation in conjunction with HPC grid capability can be a powerful tool to simulate material behaviour at mesoscopic scale during thermo-mechanical processing of materials.