Chemical interaction, thermodynamics and glass-forming ability of Cu-Zr-Al melts

Abstract

Using the ideal associated solution model, we analyze the impact of chemical interaction on thermodynamic properties and glass –forming ability of Cu-Zr-Al alloys. For two sections Cu0.33Zr0.67-Al and Cu0.5Zr0.5-Al, we calculate activities and thermodynamic functions of mixing in liquid state taking into account both binary and ternary chemical complexes. Our calculations relate thermodynamic properties of the melts with their chemical local order characteristics. The analysis of the results reveals that composition range corresponding to high glass-forming ability of Cu0.5Zr0.5-Al alloys correlates strongly with the range where CuZr associate dominates in the melt.