Predictive modeling of Time-Temperature-Transformation diagram of metallic glasses based on atomistically-informed classical nucleation theory

Theoretical prediction of glass forming ability (GFA) of metallic alloys is a key process in exploring metallic alloy compositions with excellent GFA and thus with the ability to form a large-sized bulk metallic glass. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is a promising tool to achieve a theoretical prediction. However, direct MD prediction continues to be challenging due to the time-scale limitation of MD. With respect to practical bulk metallic glass alloys, the time necessary for quenching at a typical cooling rate is five or more orders of magnitude higher than that at the MD time-scale. To overcome the time-scale issue, this study proposes a combined method of classical nucleation theory and MD simulations. The method actually allows to depict the time-temperature-transformation (TTT) diagram of the bulk metallic glass alloys. The TTT directly provides a prediction of the critical cooling rate and GFA. Although the method assumes conventional classical nucleation theory, all the material parameters appearing in the theory were determined by MD simulations using realistic interatomic potentials. The method is used to compute the TTT diagrams and critical cooling rates of two Cu-Zr alloy compositions (Cu50Zr50 and Cu20Zr80). The results indicate that the proposed method reasonably predicts the critical cooling rate based on the computed TTT.