Phase-field study for the splitting behaviour of precipitate under applied stress

This paper employs the phase-field method to study the splitting behaviour of a single coherent particle under an applied uniaxial stress. It finds that the splitting behaviour is greatly influenced by the initial shape of precipitates, the bulk free energy condition, the degree of supersaturation and the ratio of the interfacial energy to the elastic strain energy, etc. The simulated results demonstrate that the aspect ratio of the particle determines whether the splitting can occur and how many split plates can be obtained. The splitting of particle is sensitive to the interfacial energy, i.e. the splitting becomes more and more difficult with increasing the ratio of the interfacial energy to the elastic strain energy. And increasing the magnitude of the applied stress is favourable to the splitting. The splitting process is also explained from the point of view of the corresponding diffusion potential.