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Understanding the effects of an anisotropic grain boundary energy model is difficult analytically, so simulations provide a valuable insight into the dynamics and characteristics of grain structure evolution. A brute-force analysis of the common Read–Shockley model in two dimensions for grains of the topological class of n-sided grains with 3 ⩽ n ⩽ 8 is performed. In this approach, we rotate all cubic two-dimensional crystal lattices of n-sided grain neighbors stepwise with high resolution in two dimensions, and compute the growth rates of each configuration to obtain detailed growth rate distributions. To perform the computationally intense task of computing the growth rates for billions of configurations, a vertex type model and a supercomputer are utilized. Modern computation facilities deliver the required computation power to carry out such studies in a reasonable amount of time. The vertex model is validated by comparison with 700 phase-field simulations. Our findings support the isotropic behavior of grain structures with randomly oriented lattices and Read–Shockley grain boundary energy, where the average values of the growth rate distributions follow the isotropic Neumann–Mullins relation. Further, all computed growth rate distributions are not symmetric and adapt a normal distribution for n → 8. Abnormal grain growth does not occur for the Read–Shockley model with neighbors in the range 3 ⩽ n ⩽ 8. The brute-force method of scanning the parameter space in high resolution reaches its limit fast, but contributes a new perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phase-field method is gradually exploiting new research areas, and the demand for the ability to simulate larger domains is increasing continuously with the move towards massive parallel computation. We emphasize the efficient usage of high-performance computing resources by investigating the scaling behavior of 1D domain decomposition, 3D domain decomposition and the runtime behavior of the commonly used moving simulation domain as well as 1D load balancing for a finite difference phase-field implementation. A simple performance model for blocking communication and measurements shows that it is necessary to apply 3D domain decomposition for a 3D domain to scale on high-performance clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computational models based on the phase‐field method operate on a mesoscopic length scale providing microstructure and mechanical property relations. We derive a quantitative phase‐field model capable of describing the coupled diffusion of the surrounding water and the stress evolution during dynamic fracture formation under applied load in glass materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]