Abstract: Two principles of the phase field method are introduced, and the application of the phase field method for numerical simulation of solidification microstructure is expatiated. It is pointed out that the phase field method is very suitable to compute the 3D microstructure than other methods. The direc-tions of further research on the phase field method are aimed at better numerical arithmetic, more precise model, 3D quantitative simulation and utility.

Key words: Microstructure, Numerical simulation, Phase field method