Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Liquid-Vapor Coexistence Curves of Metals

Abstract

A Molecular dynamics implementation of Gibbs ensemble method is applied to determine liquid-vapor coexistence curves of metals using embedded atom model potentials. As an application of the code we developed, the liquid-vapor coexistence curves of Aluminum and Copper are simulated using Cai and Ye potential. The critical constants obtained were found to be slightly lower than the range of experimental results. The results show that the potentials parameters obtained by fitting to low temperature solid properties are not adequate to accurately determine the liquid-vapor phase diagram.