The concept of directional binding energy and analysis of the phenomena involving surface and grain boundary: Part I Theory

The concept of directional binding energy (DBE) is proposed to describe the binding energy of the crystal and the ideal direction of the antiaction force against the surface tension, which derives the grain-boundary energy and also energy ratio (γ_gb/γ_s). It may provide a simple and lucid way to analyse the surface energy, grain-boundary energy and energy ratio from the correlative view point. It has been found that the grain-boundary energy can be derived only from the conceptual approach of DBE, irrespective of the dislocation model, which also makes it possible to determine the energy ratio with the misorientation angle. That is, the energy ratio (γ_gb/γ_s) is proportional to the misorientation angle, 2 sin (k′θ/2) where k′ is a constant and θ is the misorientation angle. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.