Analysis of the Influence of Element’s Entropy on the Bulk Metallic Glass (BMG) Entropy, Complexity, and Strength

Abstract

Bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) are disordered compounds without a long-range crystalline order. In this paper, we study the effect of an element’s standard entropy on the BMG’s entropy and complexity for four elements. In order to do this, we simulate the BMG structures first. Then we compute the entropy and fractal dimension of the resulting structures as measures of disorder and complexity, respectively. We verify our predictions via experiments. In doing so, we substitute the elements in separate experiments and compute the fractal dimension of the obtained BMG pattern. The results of our investigations show that there is a relation between the variations of elements’ entropies and the variations of BMGs’ entropy and fractality. On the other hand, measurement of the compressive strength for the obtained BMGs from experiments shows that by increasing the entropy and fractal dimension, BMG’s compressive strength increases. The adaptive capability observed in this method could potentially be harnessed for targeted BMG production, depending on the specific design goal. The method discussed here is not only useful for analysis of BMG structures, but it can be applied to other structures.