[edit] Describing a boundary A boundary can be described by the orientation of the boundary to the two grains and the

3-D rotation required to bring the grains into coincidence. Thus a boundary has 5 macroscopic degrees of freedom. However, it is common to describe a boundary only as the orientation relationship of the neighbouring grains. Generally, the convenience of ignoring the boundary plane orientation, which is very difficult to determine, outweighs the reduced information. The relative orientation of the two grains is described using the rotation matrix:

The characteristic distribution of boundary misorientations in a completely randomly oriented set of grains for cubic symmetry materials.

Using this system the rotation angle is:

while the direction [uvw] of the rotation axis is:

The nature of the crystallography involved limits the misorientation of the boundary. A completely random polycrystal, with no texture, thus has a characteristic distribution of boundary misorientations (see figure). However, such cases are rare and most materials will deviate from this ideal to a greater or lesser degree. [edit] Boundary energy

The energy of a tilt boundary and the energy per dislocation as the misorientation of the boundary increases. The energy of a low-angle boundary is dependent on the degree of misorientation between the neighbouring grains up to the transition to high-angle status. In the case of simple tilt boundaries the energy of a boundary made up of dislocations with Burgers vector b and spacing h is predicted by the Read-Shockley equation:

where = b/h, 0 = Gb/4 (1-), A = 1 + ln(b/2 r0), G is the shear modulus, is poisson's ratio, and r0 is the radius of the dislocation core. It can be seen that as the energy of the boundary increases the energy per dislocation decreases. Thus there is a driving force to produce fewer, more misoriented boundaries (i.e., grain growth). The situation in high-angle boundaries is more complex. Although theory predicts that the energy will be a minimum for ideal CSL configurations, with deviations requiring dislocations and other energetic features, empirical measurements suggest the relationship is more complicated. Some predicted troughs in energy are found as expected while others missing or substantially reduced. Surveys of the available experimental data have indicated that simple relationships such as low are misleading: It is concluded that no general and useful criterion for low energy can be enshrined in a simple geometric framework. Any understanding of the variations of interfacial energy must take account of the atomic structure and the details of the bonding at the interface.[1]