Other Process Driving Forces
Precipitate coarsening
- the system can do free work by reducing the total surface energy of the precipitates
- Fewer, larger precipitates will achieve this
Grain growth
- The grain boundary energy can be minimised in a similar fashion by grain coarsening
Recrystallisation
- The energy associated with dislocation lines can be considerable in cold worked material
- This may be released by the nucleation and growth of strain-free grains during annealing