Mobility of low-angle grain boundaries in pure metals

The mobility of low-angle grain boundaries in pure metals is reviewed and several theoretical treatments are provided. The approach that provides the best agreement with the available experimental data is one in which the mobility is controlled by vacancy diffusion through the bulk to (and from) the dislocations that comprise the boundary that are bowing out between pinning points. The pinning points are presumed to be extrinsic dislocations swept into the boundaries or grown in during the prior processing of the material. This approach yields a mobility that is constant with respect to misorientation angle, up to the transition to the high-angle regime. For small misorientations of the order 1°, however, the mobility appears to increase with decreasing misorientation angle.