  We study a Ginzburg-Landau model of structural phase transition in two
dimensions, in which a single order parameter is coupled to the tetragonal and
dilational strains. Such elastic coupling terms in the free energy much affect
the phase transition behavior particularly near the tricriticality. A
characteristic feature is appearance of intermediate states, where the ordered
and disordered regions coexist on mesoscopic scales in nearly steady states in
a temperature window. The window width increases with increasing the strength
of the dilational coupling. It arises from freezing of phase ordering in
inhomogeneous strains. No impurity mechanism is involved. We present a simple
theory of the intermediate states to produce phase diagrams consistent with
simulation results.
