| In this thesis, the phase-field approach is employed to study the effect of elastic inhomogeneity and structural defects on phase separation kinetics and morphological evolution in bulk and film systems, the precipitation of theta ' phase (Al2Cu) in Al-Cu alloys, and solute strengthening of alloys.; By combining the iteration method for calculating the elastic energy and a semi-implicit spectral method for solving the Cahn-Hilliard equation an extremely efficient phase-field model is developed for studying morphological evolution in coherent systems with large elastic inhomogeneity.; Spinodal decomposition in a thin film with periodically distributed arrays of interfacial dislocations is simulated. The results show that the periodic stress field associated with the array of interfacial dislocations leads to a directional phase separation and the formation of ordered microstructures.; The metastable theta' (Al2Cu) precipitates are one of the primary strengthening precipitates in Al-Cu alloys. They are of a plate-like shape with strong interfacial energy and mobility anisotropies. A phase-field model which can automatically incorporate the thermodynamic and kinetic information from databases is developed. The relationships between phase-field model parameters and material thermodynamic and kinetic properties are established. Systematic simulations of theta' growth in 1D, 2D and 3D are carried out. The growth of a single theta ' precipitate in 1D exactly reproduces the results from analytical solutions. The phase-filed model can serve as a basis for quantitative understanding of the influence of elastic energy, interface energy anisotropy and interface mobility anisotropy on the precipitation of theta' in Al-Cu alloys.; Precipitates and solutes are commonly used to strengthen alloys. A phase field model of dislocation dynamics, which employs 12 order parameter fields to describe the dislocation distribution in a single fcc crystal, and one composition field to describe the solute distribution, is developed for a binary alloy. This model is able to simulate phase transformation, solute diffusion, dislocation motion as well as their interaction under applied stresses. A new functional form for describing the eigenstrains of dislocations is constructed, which eliminates the dependence of the magnitude of the dislocation Burgers vector on applied stresses and provides a correct dislocation stress field. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
