Analysis of spinodal decomposition in Al-Zn and Al-Zn-Cu alloys using the nonlinear Cahn-Hilliard equation

The phase field model based on the nonlinear Cahn-Hilliard equation was applied to analyze the spinodal decomposition process in Al-Zn and Al-Zn-Cu alloys. Partial differential equations were solved using the explicit finite difference method for the Al-20, and 35 at. % Zn alloys aged at temperatures between 25 and 100 °C for times from 10 s to 2000 s and Al-20at.%Zn-10at.%Cu and Al-20at.%Zn-5at.%Cu alloys at temperatures between 400 and 500 °C for times from 3600 to 360000 s. Thermo-Calc indicated that the copper addition extends the presence of the metastable miscibility gap up to a temperature of about 597 °C in comparison to the temperature of 350 °C for the binary case. This miscibility gap was calculated assuming that the equilibrium phases were not present and thus it is only existing at the early stages of aging. Simulation results pointed out that the phase decomposition process is much faster in the binary alloys than that in the ternary alloys in spite of the higher aging temperature for the latter case.