We report a mode of grain growth, involving the macroscopic translation of grain centers during nonisothermal annealing. Through synchrotron high-energy x-ray diffraction microscopy, we find dissolution of semicoherent precipitates generates dislocations, thereby raising the stored strain energy within grains. The subsequent evolution of grains shows unexpected grain translations over length scales of 10--100 {μ}m. Phase-field simulations reveal that such translations are not uncommon in strain-energy-driven grain growth, wherein different regions of a grain may grow and shrink simultaneously.
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Higgins et al. (2021) studied this question.