Relation between superheated temperature and cooling rate for deep supercooled niobium melt

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Computational Physics
• Thermodynamics

Background:

• Understanding melt structure and solidification is crucial for materials processing.
• Quantitative data on melt behavior under varying conditions are scarce due to experimental challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate niobium melt structure variations with superheating.
• To analyze the effect of cooling rate on solidification and crystal-amorphous transitions.
• To determine optimal superheating and undercooling conditions.

Main Methods:

• Large-scale molecular dynamics simulations.
• Solid/liquid coexistence method.
• Radial distribution function, energy-temperature analysis, atomic cluster analysis, and visualization analysis.

Main Results:

• Niobium melt structure classified into three regions based on superheating temperature.
• Critical cooling rate for crystal-amorphous transition determined as 1.0 × 10^12.5 K s^-1.
• Solidification undercooling increases with superheating, peaking at ~0.432 Tm, with maximal superheating at ~1.216 Tm.

Conclusions:

• Melt structure is temperature-dependent in specific superheating ranges.
• Cooling rate and superheating significantly influence niobium solidification pathways.
• Defined superheating and undercooling parameters are critical for controlling material properties.