Abstract
An easy to implement and efficient methodology for simulations of grain growth in realistic three-dimensional (3D) polycrystalline microstructures is presented. The techniques of digital image processing and analysis are applied to incorporate real 3D reconstructed volume of the microstructure into simulations, which may be very helpful for a better representation of the initial state of microstructure to obtain realistic and unbiased results. Based on the simulation results of real microstructures (pure iron), the grain size and topology distributions are studied and finally the applicability of the MacPherson-Srolovitz relation (2007 Nature 446 1053-5) is investigated. The results showed that the grain growth rate measured in α-Fe grains is in good agreement with that predicted by the MacPherson-Srolovitz equation.