PXO stands for Poly-XTAL Operations. It is an open-source, MATLAB codebase for generating, analysing and exporting complex space partitions such as multi-phase metallic grain structures. Poly-XTAL operations is named after the various operations which lead to its functionalities relating to poly-crystalline structures. It is useful for mathematicians, statistical mechanists, material scientists and computational geologists. This wiki has pages for users, developers and collaborators.
Start here: Read the MOTIVATION for developing PXO, along with a set of VALIDATION results, current LIMITATIONS of PXO, TUTORIALS & TESTCASES which you can try out while learning to use. In case you use MTEX and would like to expand your research scope by being able to generate your own custom grain structures and crystallographic textures, you can use PXO to do so. Detailed information on exactly how to do this can be found in this wiki from the PXO-MTEX link provided in the sidebar of this page. You may use the DISCUSSION page to put forth your ideas, feature requests, documentation requests and bug reports. Please visit HERE to see installation instructions.
Generating 2-dimensional grains: Grain growth simulation
- Study grain growth kinetics
- Study the effect of particle distributions
- Study the effect of particle morphologies
- Study the effect of temperature distribution
- Study the effect of sampling anisotropies
- Study the effect of boundary conditions (being worked on)
- Study the effect of domain shape (currently rectangle and square only. Others are being worked on)
- Cryst. miso. based GS evolution (being worked on)
- Growth of equivalent Voronoi tessellations (being worked on)
Grain structure morphology development
- Ising type GS
- equi-axed GS
- extruded type GS
- rolled type GS
- gradient GS
- grains with smooth GB
- grains with tortuous GB
- Independent Voronoi tessellated (VT) GS: Currently, only 2D is available. Three types of lattices are possible, and these are random, rectangular and triangular. Together, they allow Voronoi tessellated random, rectangular and hexagonal grains respectively. Number of grains, size of grains, and aspect ratio of grains can be generated. Hexagonal grains with zigzag or armchair chirality may be generated. Rectangular grains can be made square grains as well, as the latter is subset of former. Long edge of a rectangular grain can be made to align either with x or y. These changes can be introduced by giving different values to a set of defining parameters for each case. A gradient may also be introduced if desired in each of these cases. Pixellated versions of a Voronoi tessellation may also be generated. Values of these parameters to obtain the grain structures have been detailed HERE.
- MC derived equivalent VT GS
Analysis of 2-dimensional grain structure
Using mtex
- All grain structure analysis capabilities of mtex could be expolited.
Using PXO
- Rapid estimation of intercept grain sizes
- Frontal algorithm based grain area identification and grain structure segmentation into grains
- Orientation based grain size statistics
- Grain area statistics of Voronoi tessellation
Grain structure export format
- .CTF format: Up and running for 2 phases.
- .JSON format: Being worked on.
- .INP format: Voronoi tessellation based GS: PXO-matlab to PXO-python to ABAQUS to .INP file
Texture/orientation mapping to grain structure
Using mtex and PXO
- can use model texture
- can use experimentally derived texture
Using PXO
- can use EBSD orientation data export
- can sample orientations from CTF file from EBSD data export (being worked on)
Space partitioning
- complex binary space partition which evolves tempoally in state-space
- Compelx space partitions having centroidal and boundary mobility.
Visualization capabilities
Grain structure visualization
- Monte-Carlo derived grain structure: pixellated grains with/without boundaries
- Monte-Carlo derived grain structure: brain boundaries with/without grain interior visualization
- Monte-Carlo derived grain structure: particles
- Monte-Carlo derived grain structure: grains as patches
- Voronoi-tessellation grain structure: grains as patches with/without boundaries
- All visualization within mtex after PXO data is imported in mtex
Grain structure data visualization
- Histogram of size parameters - from both, PXO and mtex based analysis data
- Voronoi tessellated grains coloured based on grain area