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Simulating the Irradiation of Materials Vol. 59, No.4, p. 50

The Computational Modeling of Alloys at the Atomic Scale:
from Ab Initio and Thermodynamics to Radiation-Induced
Heterogeneous Precipitation

A. Caro, M. Caro, P. Klaver, B. Sadigh, E.M. Lopasso, and S.G. Srinivasan


APRIL 2007 ISSUE
About this Issue

 

FIGURE 1.
Figure 1
A schematic showing the approach to describe alloy properties. Link 1 represents the ability to develop classical potentials from data on formation energies of particular phases of the alloy of interest; link 2 represents the ability to calculate thermodynamic functions of these potentials that can be compared to experiments or existing databases. Link 3 represents the ability to do large-scale Monte Carlo calculations on parallel computers where thermodynamic driving forces determine the outcome. The ensemble of these three capabilities allows the calculation of structures of FeCr alloys in heterogeneous environments like grain boundaries, dislocations, surfaces, cracks, etc.

 

FIGURE 2.
Figure 2
Upper part: Interaction energy of two substitutional chromium atoms in an iron matrix versus their separation distance. Squares are ab-initio results,22 diamonds are obtained with the empirical potential.9 Lower part: schematic of the magnetic frustration occurring at short Cr-Cr distances, preventing energetically favorable moment alignment.

 

FIGURE 3.
Figure 3
A comparison of relative energy differences in several FeCr confi gurations explored in Reference 22. Diamonds represent ab-initio calculations and squares represent classical potential results on the same samples.

 

FIGURE 4.
Figure 4
The miscibility gap and spinodal of the ferromagnetic phase of the FeCr solid solution as obtained from the free energy in Figure C in the sidebar. Also shown is the solvus as it appears in SSOL, the CALPHAD database.11 Note the finite solubility of chromium in iron at low chromium compositions and low T. In this region, ordered phases should exist. Stars represent the alloys studied in Figures 6 and 7.

 

FIGURE 5.
Figure 5
A schematic representation of the parallel Monte Carlo code with displacement used in this work, showing the differences in the driving forces (ΔG) between a lattice algorithm and a displacement algorithm.

 

FIGURE 6.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Two-dimensional slice sequences along three MC simulations starting from a solid solution and evolving toward thermodynamic equilibrium. Frames a–d show homogeneous precipitation and coarsening of α'. There is a critical size for the nuclei to be stable; the concentration of the nuclei is always x ~ 0.99, the saturation composition of a'. As MC steps proceed, the precipitates adopt spherical shapes. Frames e–h show one precipitate highlighting the fact that there is a critical size below which there are no stable precipitates. Frames i–l show the evolution of the alloy via spinodal decomposition (i.e., continuous increase of composition fluctuations until reaching terminal solution values x = 0.12 for a and x = 0.99 for α'). [VIEW ANIMATION]

 

FIGURE 7.
Figure 7
Four slices of a polycrystalline sample with an average grain size of 5 nm. A multiplicity of configurations of grain boundaries, triple and higher order junctions are observed. Simulation parameters are x = 0.15 and T = 750 K. Blue dots are iron atoms sitting at boundaries, red dots are chromium atoms. Iron atoms at perfect bcc positions are not shown. [VIEW ANIMATION]

 

FIGURE A.
Figure A
The energy of a random solid solution in the regular model for different values of Ω.

 

FIGURE B.
Figure B
The heat of formation of a random solid solution of ferromagnetic FeCr as calculated by Olsson et al.,10 as given by the classical potential Equation 6, and as reported in CALPHAD database.11

 

FIGURE C.
Figure C
The free energy of a FeCr random solid solution in the ferromagnetic phase, as a function of temperature, T, and iron composition, x. Note the anomalous behavior at low T and high x related to the change in sign of the heat of formation (see main text).

 

EQUATIONS
Figure 3

 

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2007 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society
Empirical Potentials for Concentrated Alloys

An elementary treatment of alloys that nonetheless preserves much of their complexity is based on the quasi-chemical expression for the energetics of an ensemble of atoms (see Equation 1), where φi,j Ε {φAA, φAB, φBB} represents the contribution to the total energy of a bond between atom types AA, AB, or BB, in a binary alloy of A and B species. (All equations appear in the table.) In a random solid solution of composition xB, with xA+xB = 1, where atoms have coordination z, the total energy per atom is given in Equation 2, with Ω = φAB–{(φAABB)/2}. Ω measures the departure of the heteroatomic interaction from the average interaction between the species. The heat of formation (h.o.f.) of the alloy (i.e., the departure of the energy of the alloy with respect to the ideal solution; ideal solution energy is given by the linear interpolation between the pure constituents) is simply given by Equation 3.

In this model then, the h.o.f., Δef, is a quadratic (symmetric) function of composition, with Ω > 0 for solutions showing a tendency to segregate and Ω < 0 for those with tendency to form compounds. Figure A shows the energy of the solution versus composition for the three possible cases.

Many solutions in nature do not have a symmetrical h.o.f. and therefore additional complexity is usually added to this elementary treatment by introducing a polynomial dependence of Ω on composition, usually called sub-regular solution model, using a particular form called the Redlich–Kister expansion, as shown in Equation 4, where Lp are coefficients dependent on temperature. Empirical potentials for molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of alloys are built upon expressions similar to the quasi-chemical energetics, but with radial dependence and non-linear terms. The many-body potentials have in common a description of the total energy in terms of the sum over atom energies, themselves composed of two contributions, namely embedding and pair potential terms; it reads as shown in Equation 5, where α and β stand for elements A or B sitting at sites i or j; Fs are the embedding functions for either type of elements, and Vs and ρs are the pair potentials and densities between α–β pairs. Alloy properties are therefore described by the functions ρAB and VAB. Depending on the model considered, the density functions do not always include the cross term ρAB. Different expressions for the embedding energies, densities, and pair potentials englobe a large diversity of similar models. From Equation 5 it appears clearly that the h.o.f. of such an alloy has contributions from the non-linear embedding term and from the pair potential functions. The latter provide a contribution to the h.o.f. equivalent to the Ω term in Equation 2. In order to reproduce complex formation energies, a natural way to add complexity into the model, as suggested by Equation 4, is to include a composition dependence to the pair potential. The composition is a local variable, depending on the environment around atoms i and j (a detailed derivation is given in Reference 9). See Equations 6 and 7.

For h(xi,j) a representation was chosen based on the Redlich–Kister expansion of the same order n used to fit the h.o.f one wants to model, namely Equation 8, with Hp coefficients obtained by a fitting procedure. This procedure proves robust in the sense that given a target h.o.f. is always possible to find an embedded atom type model as given by Equation 6 that reproduces it. Figure B shows the results for FeCr with the target h.o.f taken from the ab-initio calculations of Olsson et al.10 The formation energy is indistinguishable from the target function.

FROM POTENTIALS TO THERMOSYNAMICS
The calculation of the thermodynamic properties of an alloy implies the knowledge of the free energy of the different phases as a function of composition and temperature. The calculation of the free energy is a multi-step process that requires several different MD runs. In recent papers, a numerical package was implemented that allows efficient and accurate calculation of free energy. A complete description of the method is available in those previous publications.11–13The basic assumption that links thermodynamics to MD is ergodicity represented by the assumption in Equation 9, where the left-hand side is a time average in an MD run, namely Equation 10, and the right-hand side is an ensemble average in the sense of statistical mechanics (see Equation 11, where H is the Hamiltonian of the system, ξ is the ensemble of variables that specify a particular state, k is the Boltzman constant, T is the temperature, and Ω is the volume of the phase space).

Free energy is not an ensemble average, it is rather related to the denominator of Equation 11 (see Equation 12) and cannot therefore be obtained as a time average of an MD run. Numerous procedures to calculate free energies have been proposed and are available for review in the literature. 14–19 Here, the free energy per particle at a given temperature T, F(T), is calculated through a thermodynamic integration between the state of interest and a reference state at temperature T0 with known free energy F(T0), using the Gibbs-Duhem equation, as shown in Equation 13, where h(t) is the enthalpy per particle. The enthalpy is obtained from an MD run and it is fitted with a polynomial in T that allows an analytic integration in Equation 13. The coupling-constant integration method, or switching Hamiltonian method, is used to calculate F(T0). Considered here is a system with Hamiltonian, as shown in Equation 14, where U represents the actual system (in this work, described with a EAM-type Hamiltonian) and W is the Hamiltonian of the reference system, with known free energy. The parameter λ allows the switch from U (for λ = 1) to W (for λ = 0). With this Hamiltonian one can obtain the free energy difference between W and U by calculating the reversible work required to switch from one system to the other. Then the unknown free energy associated with U, F(T0), is given by Equation 15, where FW(T0) is the free energy of the reference system at T0. The integration is carried over the coupling parameter λ, and < … > stands for the average over a canonical ensemble, or a time average in a (T, V, N) constant MD simulation. For the solid phases the reference system W is a set of Einstein oscillators centered on the average positions of the atoms in the (T, P = 0, N) ensemble corresponding to the Hamiltonian U. The free energy per atom of the Einstein crystal is known analytically and therefore Equations 13 and 15 provide the recipe for free energy calculations. For alloys the strategy is to construct for each phase of interest a set of free energy functions versus composition x and temperature F(x,T). The final result for the free energy of the FeCr alloy in the body centered cubic ferromagnetic phase is shown as a surface in Figure C. Isotherm lines, in black over the surface, are used together with the common tangent construction to determine the phase diagram shown in Figure 4.


This paper describes a strategy to simulate radiation damage in FeCr alloys wherein magnetism introduces an anomaly in the heat of formation of the solid solution. This has implications for the precipitation of excess chromium in the a' phase in the presence of heterogeneities. These complexities pose many challenges for atomistic (empirical) methods. To address such issues the authors have developed a modified manybody potential by rigorously fitting thermodynamic properties including free energy. Multi-million atom displacement Monte Carlo simulations in the transmutation ensemble, using the new potential, predict that thermodynamically grain boundaries, dislocations, and free surfaces are not preferential sites for α′ precipitation.

INTRODUCTION

The accurate prediction of innumerable properties of the many diverse materials, comprising multiple constituents as well as time and space scales, is nowadays considered routine. This quantitative computational materials science relies on a combination of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics/ statistical mechanics. These two pillars complement each other well. While quantum mechanics, especially density functional theory (DFT),1 provides the basis for an almost parameter-free theory for the potential energy landscape, statistical ensemble sampling using numerous approximations allows various thermodynamic properties to be estimated. 2

Many problems, frequently related to non-equilibrium properties, cannot be addressed directly by the state-of-the-art ab-initio approach; approximations have to be used. Progress in computational capabilities and algorithm efficiency will not overcome these limitations in the foreseeable future. For that reason simplified models for the energetics are customarily used to capture partial aspects of reality, furthering the understanding of complex physical processes. For example, classical potentials are widely used for large-scale dynamic simulations of a diversity of systems, in particular, metals.3–5 At present such potentials show much promise for describing basic thermodynamic properties of complex, multicomponent materials.

When mechanical properties and microstructure are the focus of attention, simulations have to be simple enough to deal with a large number of atoms, thus capturing the length scale that is relevant for this class of problems. The classical empirical total energy expressions that are so widely used have limitations to address real materials. In particular, iron alloys, the most commonly used materials for structural applications, continue to be a major challenge, as iron is a complex element whose properties are determined by subtle features in its electronic structure. Furthermore, impurities, intrinsic defects, and alloying elements in iron play significant roles in determining its macroscopic mechanical properties. In nuclear reactors, structural components and fuel cladding undergo embrittlement as a consequence of radiation-induced α′ precipitation. The ability to perform predictive atomistic simulations for alloys in such an environment has attracted much attention.

FeCr alloys are common structural materials in present fission reactors. Their resistance to swelling, low ductile-to-brittle transition temperature, and low activation properties make them good candidates for use in future fusion reactors.6,7 High-energy particle bombardment will extensively damage the alloy. The displacement per atom (dpa) dose expected in fusion reactors is in the range of 100,8 inducing microstructure evolution, swelling, and embrittlement.

FeCr ALLOYS IN IRRADIATION ENVIRONMENT

In the schematic shown in Figure 1, the link labeled “1” shows the methodology to utilize data obtained from ab-initio calculations or experiments to formulate empirical interatomic potentials appropriate for large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. To develop a potential that reproduces variables relevant to the problem of interest, properties such as heat of formation (h.o.f.) of the alloys in the entire compositional range, the lattice parameter, or the elastic properties versus composition are used. An overview of the procedure can be found in the sidebar, and References 14 and 15 give details.

The calculation of the thermodynamic properties of an alloy implies knowledge of the free energy of the relevant phases as a function of composition and temperature (see link 2 in Figure 1). The free energy calculation involves a multi-step process requiring many MD runs. A numerical package was implemented to efficiently and accurately calculate free energies. A detailed description of the method is available in References 14 through 18. See the Equations table for the main equations.

Following the methodology proposed in CALPHAD,11 the problem of binary alloys was separated into the properties of the pure elements (i.e., the free energies of all possible phases of the pure elements) and the properties of the mixtures. The latter are expressed in terms of excess enthalpy and entropy. Excess quantities are referred to the linear interpolation between the pure elements, which represents the ideal solution. Now the alloy description is conveniently separated into two distinct parts: the description of the pure elements and the description of the mixture. Once the free energies are expressed in this way (suggested by the Scientific Group Thermodata Europe)12 the calculation of phase diagrams can easily be performed with software such as Thermo-Calc.11

The numerical results can be compared with a standard thermodynamic database such as the Dinsdale’s compilation.13 Note that not all data in the database are from experiments.

This work used the iron potential reported by M.I. Mendelev et al.20 and the chromium potential reported by J. Wallenius et al.21 The formation energy for FeCr has recently been calculated by P. Olsson et al.10 together with a rough estimate of the bulk modulus and lattice parameter of the alloy as a function of composition. These calculations, albeit ab-initio, still contain several simplifications and are therefore not to be considered as definitive. They are first estimates on which classical models can be developed.

T.P.C. Klaver et al.22 used DFT calculations to study the mixing behavior of FeCr alloys. They confirm the previous observations by P. Olsson et al.10 and by A.A. Mirzoev et al.23 regarding the change in sign in the formation energy of the alloy at x ~ 0.1 (where x refers to chromium composition). The subtle electronic structure that arises when ferromagnetic (fm) and antiferromagnetic (afm) metals are mixed in different ratios appears to cause this anomaly. In fact, magnetic frustration leads to a strong dependence of the chromium magnetic moment on the number of chromium neighbors. Magnetic frustration occurs when it is impossible for an iron or a chromium atom to assume an fm or afm state respectively, with respect to all its neighbors. This translates into a repulsive interaction that competes with the large negative heat of solution of a single chromium impurity (i.e., a tendency to form ordered compounds). The limitations of the quasi-chemical description for the energetics of this system (see the sidebar) become readily apparent when we realize that in an expression like Equation 1 the Cr-Cr interaction has to be attractive since chromium is in a condensed phase at 0 K, while it becomes repulsive when the Cr-Cr pair is surrounded by iron. It implies then that a pair-like model for the energetics has to contain explicit composition-dependent terms.

A first test of the approach is a comparison of classical and ab-initio calculations of the Cr-Cr interaction when a chromium substitutional pair is embedded in an otherwise pure iron matrix and their separation distance is increased (Figure 2). Apart from the fine structure of the ab-initio results at the fifth-neighbor separation, attributed to finite size effects,22 the agreement in both strength (~300 meV) and range (~2.2 a0) of the interaction is very good, giving support to this classical model as being able to capture the Cr-Cr pair repulsion aspects of the energetics in this system.

A more stringent test of the potential is to compare the energy dispersion between different configurations of chromium substitutions at a given global composition and sample size. Because ab-initio calculations involve small supercells, disordered configurations always represent ordered supercell structures with image interactions translating into significant dispersion of the results. On the other hand, simulations based on empirical potentials can afford large system sizes and thus many possible local configurations of random solutions are adequately explored, which translates into small energy dispersion between different realizations of the random samples. It should be noted here that the ab-initio results by Olsson10 used by the authors to derive classical potential do not have dispersion because they are obtained using the coherent potential approximation, a mean field methodology for disordered alloys.

The ab-initio data that will be compared with classical results were obtained in supercells of 16, 24, and 54 atoms. These numbers are too small for the embedded atom model (EAM) formalism (minimum size is twice the cutoff of the interactions, involving ~100 atoms). The authors replicated the ab-initio 54 atom sample 3 × 3 × 3 times to get the classical 1,458 atom sample, and 4 × 4 × 4 times for the smaller ones. While this procedure reproduces some of the finite size constraints appearing in the ab-initio calculations, it still allows for relaxations with wavelengths equal to three or four times the size of the ab-initio supercell, not accounted for in the ab-initio calculations; some discrepancies are therefore expected. Finally, since the classical potential is fitted to the h.o.f. by Olsson, and the results by Klaver use a different ab-initio approach, the comparison is done not in absolute values but in dispersion around a mean. Figure 3 shows several cases, at different compositions and cell sizes. The agreement in the range of the dispersion between different configurations goes from surprisingly good in some cases to reasonably good in others, within the accuracy of the calculations. From Figures 2 and 3 one can conclude that the complexity of the interactions in the solid solution is reasonably represented by the classical potential.

THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES

From the free energy function represented in Figure C in the sidebar, the miscibility gap and the spinodal are obtained (Figure 4). For comparison, this figure also shows the solvus as it appears in SSOL, the database of CALPHAD;11 note that all other phases have been omitted. Several differences are readily noticeable. Neither the miscibility gap nor the spinodal go to zero composition at 0 K on the iron-rich side of the diagram. This curious effect is due to the change in the sign of the h.o.f. of this alloy at about 10%, which implies finite solubility at low temperatures. Additionally, the critical temperature for this ab-initio plus classical thermodynamics model is much higher (~1,300 K) than the value in the SSOL data. The reason is that the h.o.f. data of Olsson,10 on which the potential is based, show a maximum of about 100 meV, a value well above the SSOL data (60 meV); on the other hand, excess vibrational entropies agree very well and contribute significantly to the excess free energy. For details see Reference 15.

To describe non-equilibrium processes in heterogeneous systems with defects and external potentials, a new computational tool is needed. Most computational approaches to non-equilibrium are based on kinetic Monte Carlo (MC) algorithms that in one way or another have to adopt a frozen backbone or lattice where the diffusing species jump. This is a necessary restriction because a time-tracking algorithm needs rates for all possible events.24

Kinetics and thermodynamics are two aspects of the problem of evolution in non-equilibrium systems.25 Since one cannot yet treat both at the same level of accuracy, one has to choose which one is more relevant for the problem under consideration. The focus here is on thermodynamics, with a parallel MC code that drives the system toward thermodynamic equilibrium by minimizing the free energy as MC steps go on, with no approximations to the potential energy landscape.

Figure 5 shows a schematic representation of this algorithm. Details will be published elsewhere.24 While the driving force for a lattice algorithm is the difference in energy between the two phases plus a contribution from a simplified interface energy, the displacements algorithm accounts for all terms with no approximations. Differences are seen in free energy between the phases, actual interfacial free energy, the contribution from elastic energy created by lattice mismatch, and interaction with external potentials (external or internal stress fields, originating in defects like grain boundaries, cracks, dislocations, surfaces, etc).
[VIEW ANIMATION to see an example of the application to copper impurities in iron.]

The described methodology is used to study homogeneous precipitation of α′ phase in saturated FeCr solution. The study starts with the homogeneous case at two compositions, x = 0.15 and x = 0.5, at T = 750 K, points identified with stars in Figure 4; x = 0.15 is just above the solubility limit, while x = 0.5 is well within the spinodal. Figure 6 shows two-dimensional slice sequences from MC simulations that represent steps toward equilibrium, starting from a solid solution and evolving toward a segregated state with α and α′ regions. All three simulations correspond to perfect crystal cubic samples with ~2 million atoms and periodic boundary conditions.

HETEROGENEOUS PRECIPITATION

In this study, heterogeneous precipitation (i.e., precipitation in the presence of defects) is explored in a polycrystalline sample with average grain size of 5 nm. This enables the observation of a multiplicity of configurations of grain boundaries, triple and higher order junctions, and eventually surfaces, in a single run. Figure 7 shows four slices taken at different locations in a cubic sample represented by the boxes in the figure. A surprising effect wherein the excess chromium does not precipitate at boundaries is observed. Instead all α′ precipitates are in the grain interior, avoiding contact with the grain boundary network. Experiments reporting grain boundary chromium depletion,26 presumably due to a kinetic effect (vacancies migrating preferentially via the chromium sites), do not allow one to separate thermodynamics from kinetic effects. Ab-initio results on free surfaces predict no segregation.27 Since it is well known that the good corrosion properties of this alloy are due to formation of chromium oxide at the surface, one can conclude that in this alloy kinetic and thermodynamic effects play significant roles in the determination of the microstructure.

CONCLUSION

FeCr ferritic steels are candidate materials for diverse applications in advanced nuclear energy systems, from cladding of fuel to structural components. Recent ab-initio results have shown that magnetism in these alloys plays an important role in determining its energetics at 0 K. The authors have developed an approach to computationally model processes in this system based on a classical potential that captures the essentials of its energetics and thermodynamics. The tools developed allow simulations of radiation damage collision cascades, precipitation of saturated solutions, and heterogeneous non-equilibrium processes. We find that our potential predicts rejection of chromium from grain boundaries, an unexpected behavior for the precipitation of the chromiumrich solution. Thus FeCr is far from being fully understood. Accurate simulations can only be done if the intricate details of its energetics and thermokinetics are adequately captured. This work represents a step into that direction.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract No. W-7405-Eng-48, with support from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program. At Los Alamos National Laboratory this was supported by the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, NE-20.

REFERENCES

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A. Caro, M. Caro, and B. Sadigh are staff scientists with the Chemistry, Materials, and Life Sciences Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. P. Klaver is a post doc at the School of Mathematics and Physics, Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. E.M. Lopasso is a staff scientist at Centro Atomico Bariloche–Instituto Balseiro in Bariloche, Argentina. S.G. Srinivasan is a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Dr. A. Caro can be reached at caro2@llnl.gov.