Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-materials-science-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/paper-1/4/d/solution

The disc volume is , the combined area of its two flat faces is , and its cylindrical edge area is . With the signed bulk driving term per volume,
For favourable transformation is negative and the interfacial terms are positive. This classical nucleation theory expression neglects a separate elastic term; if coherency strain is important, its appropriate energy must be added or included explicitly in the effective volume term. has energy units, whereas here has energy-per-volume units.

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