Mesoscale simulation of microstructure evolution during multi-stage hot forging processes

The paper presents a two-dimensional cellular automaton (CA) approach coupled with a topology deformation technique for quantitative and topographic prediction of the microstructure evolution during multi-stage hot forging processes. The simulation presented in this work was implemented by an in-house developed C++ program. The grain topography, recrystallization fraction and average grain size were also obtained during a four-hit forging process. The simulated results agree well with the experimental data in terms of average grain size, suggesting that the developed CA model is a reliable numerical approach for predicting microstructure evolution for ultra-super-critical rotor steel during multi-stage hot forging processes.