High-pressure effect on grain boundary wetting in aluminium bicrystals

The effect of pressure and misorientation on grain boundary wetting in aluminium bicrystals has been investigated. The grain boundaries were of [100] symmetrical tilt type. The wetting liquid was an Sn– Zn alloy. It is shown that the wetting angle is a function of misorientation but not of pressure. The reasons of the above results are discussed, assuming a linear dependence between the interface energy and pressure. It is shown that the difference of energy of the liquid/solid and solid/solid interface as well as the misorientation dependence of energy is simply proportional to the free volume of the interfaces.