Measurements, models, and mathematics of alloy systems

Abstract

The classical phase studies of Hume-Rothery and co-workers extended the work of Dolezalek and Hildebrand. The demonstration of the importance of the electron concentration in addition to the atomic concentrations gave rise to such developments as Miedema's treatment of intermetallic compounds and the Brewer-Engel theory. The experimental techniques, to which Dr. Kleppa has made distinguished contributions, have provided partial thermodynamic data for many binary systems but complete descriptions are usually absent because of the shortcomings of available techniques. Applications of newer methods for structural analysis have not yielded substantial guidance to the practical metallurgist. The most successful predictions have been based on simple approximations to the Gibbs- Duhem equation with experimental data for binary systems. More “physically correct” analyses through ab initio calculations seem a long way from the practice of metallurgy.