8:45 AM-9:30 AM
Room: Liberty B&C
Chair: Fernando Reitich, University of Minnesota, USA
In this talk, the speaker will discuss the diffusional evolution of multiphase microstructure in inhomogeneous elastic media. The microstructure consists of arbitrarily shaped precipitates embedded in a matrix. Evolution occurs via long-range diffusion so that the total energy of the system (elastic+surface) decreases; this is accounted for by a modified Gibbs-Thomson boundary condition at the interfaces. He will present results using a sharp interface model in which the equations are reformulated as boundary integrals. The speaker will discuss the effects of elasticity, anisotropy and inhomogeneity on growth and coarsening kinetics of the systems. In addition, he will present evidence for a elastically-induced morphological instability that leads to precipitate splitting of the type seen in experiments. This is joint work with P.H. Leo and Q. Nie.
John Lowengrub