title: Athermal resistance to interface motion in the phase-field theory of microstructure evolution.
abstract: A method of introducing an athermal resistance to interface propagation for the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) approach to the first-order phase transformations (PTs) is developed. It consists of introducing oscillating fields of stresses (due to various defects or a Peierls barrier) or a jump in chemical energy. It removes some essential drawbacks in GL modeling: it arrests experimentally observed microstructures that otherwise converge to a single phase, and it reproduces rate-independent stress hysteresis. A similar approach can be applied for twinning, dislocations, and other PTs (e.g., electric and magnetic).
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409, USA.
authors.forename: Valery I
authors.initials: VI
authors.lastname: Levitas
authors.forename: Dong-Wook
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Lee