Molecular Dynamics Simulations on Melting of Aluminum

Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to calculate the melting points of perfect crystalline aluminum to high pressures. Under ambient pressure, there exhibits about 20% superheating before melting compared to the experimental melting point. Under high pressures, the calculated melting temperature increases with the pressure but at a decreasing rate, which agrees well with the Simon's melting equation. Porosity effect was also studied for aluminum crystals with various initial porosity at ambient pressure, which shows that the equilibrium melting point decreases with the initial porosity as experiments expect.