Cascades of instability in the solutions
               of vector-valued Cahn-Hilliard Equations.

                                   by

                               David Eyre

               JWB 335, 3:20pm  Monday, October 13, 1997


                                Abstract

Vector valued Cahn-Hilliard equations suitable for modeling
multicomponent alloys are employed to study spinodal decomposition in
these alloys. Numerical simulations of spinodal decomposition show two
remarkable events. First, the separation into multiple phases proceeds
via a sequence or cascade of separations, i.e. the one-phase material
undergoes primary separation into a two-phase material which may undergo
a secondary separation into a three phase material, and so on. Second,
between the separation events, coarsening occurs, i.e. two-phase
intermediate materials typically coarsen before three phase materials
appear. In this talk, the numerical simulations and an analysis of
secondary phase separation will be presented. Technological applications
of the theory will also be presented.


Request for preprints and reprints to eyre@math.utah.edu.
This information can be found at http://www.math.utah.edu/research/