2) Recrystallisation:
When a dislocation is added to a sub-grain boundary, it will change
the angular mismatch between the two sub-grains. When dislocations of the
same sign repeatedly become part of a single boundary, the two sub-grains
either side become progressively misoriented with respect to each other,
and eventually the mis-match may become large enough that the boundary
becomes a grain boundary. The exact orientation at which this takes place is probably mineral dependent, however 10-15 degrees misorientation is commonly quoted.
ii) Grain boundary migration & pinning
Grain boundary migration refers to the movement of the boundary separating
two grains. The movement takes place by the diffusion of single atoms from
one grain across the boundary to the other grain. This motion results in
the migration of the boundary in the opposite direction to the diffusion
direction. There are several driving forces for grain boundary migration,
in decreasing order of magnitude they are chemical, strain energy (stored
as dislocations), and elastic energy. The driving force for migration is
the difference between, for example, the dislocation energy state either
side of the boundary. The rate at which a boundary migrates is both a function of this driving force, and the mobility of the boundary, which is an inherent
property of a material (but which varies according to temperature, the
presence or absence of fluids, the nature of the boundary, and the impurity content of both the grains and the boundary).
In the examples below we distinguish grain boundary migration in "clean" and "dirty" systems. Clean systems, like metals, many sub-grain boundaries and perhaps grain boundaries between quartz grains in a granite, can have grain boundary migration involving only the local readjustment of atoms at the boundary, and in an impure system. Dirty systems such as a schist resulting from the metamorphism of a pelite, where the grain boundaries will be rich in impurities, or where the grains may not even be in physical contact, have to diffuse material across a grain boundary of finite width. Impure systems will probably have lower grain boundary mobilities (velocity = mobility * driving force) than pure ones.
Second phase particles (small micas, for example) will hinder grain boundary migration by "pinning" the boundary locally. If there are enough particles in a rock, the grain size can be controlled entirely by the particle spacing.
iii) What defines a (sub)grain boundary, and how do they vary?
iv) Static, Dynamic, Meta-dynamic Recrystallisation
3) What makes two grain behave differently?
b) crystallographic orientation Since during plastic deformation of
a crystal the CRSS controls the movement of dislocations, grains which
are well oriented for slip on a particular slip system will in principal
be able to deform more easily than those whose slip system orientations
result in low resolved shear stresses. The pair of images below are from
Y. Zhang's PhD thesis and show a numerical simulation of deformation in
a polycrystal with only one slip system, notice how in the second figure
the three coloured grains have undergone virtually no deformation (yellow)
a lot of deformation (orange) and a lot of deformation with internal kinking
as well (green). The short lines within grains show the local slip system
orientation.
c) shape The shape of any object will be an influence on its mechanical behaviour, elongate grains will be more prone to buckling than spherical ones, and if a series of elongate grains are all aligned, it makes it easier for them to deform by grain boundary sliding. Similarly elongate grains will have a mechanical coupling on them that will tend to rotate them with respect to the applied stress that spherical grains will not have.
d) neighbours The local neighbourhood relationships of grains will influence the local behaviour. If a weak mineral is surrounded by stiffer grains, it may be "shielded" by those grains and remain undeformed, even though it is inherently weak.
e) history As grains deform, their internal dislocation arrangement, shape and chemistry may change, which in turn leads to a change in mechanical properties.
f) grain size There are two main grain size dependent behaviours, one related to the Hall-Petch effect for plasticity, that makes smaller grains stiffer, the other for diffusional creep, that makes smaller grains less stiff.
g) grain boundary orientation certain grain boundary orientations allow easier grain boundary sliding, for example a brick wall texture in simple shear would allow easy grain boundary sliding because all the boundaries are aligned.