Kinetics of Phase Transformation in Multi-Component Systems

The classical approaches of the kinetics of phase transformations are based on empirical descriptions. In multi-component systems the effects of large differences in the mobility of the elements as well as the strong coupling of the thermodynamic driving forces lead to short and long term effects that cannot be treated by these approaches. In order to arrive at a predictive modelling numerical simulations are required which take full account of the thermodynamics and of mobilities. It is shown that this fundamental approach is capable of predicting the temporary existence of metastable phases, the various reaction regimes of fast and slow reactions and the transition between them leading to a transformation stasis. An excellent agreement between simulation and experiment is obtained without fitting.