Optimal Control of Material Microstructures1

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the optimal control of material microstructures. Such material microstructures are modeled by the so-called phase-field model. We study the underlying physical structure of the model and propose a data-based approach for its optimal control, along with a comparison to the control using a state-of-the-art reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm. Simulation results show the feasibility of optimally controlling such microstructures to attain desired material properties and complex target microstructures.