Ab initio calculations of elastic properties of alloys with mechanical instability: Application to BCC Ti-V alloys

Abstract

Considering Ti-V alloys with the body-centered cubic crystal lattice, a system with mechanical instability for Tirich alloys, we calculate their elastic properties using Projector Augmented Wave method and the exact muffin tin orbital method in a complete interval of V concentrations. The substitutional disorder is modeled using the special quasi-random structures technique and the coherent potential approximation. The efficiency and accuracy of the simulation techniques is analyzed, and a strategy for efficient high-throughput calculations of elastic properties of disordered alloys is proposed. Dependences of the single crystal elastic moduli on V concentration and a set ofmechanical characteristics of polycrystalline alloys are presented and discussed. The effect of V content on themechanical stabilization of the bcc Ti-V alloys is investigated. In agreement with experiment, we find that titanium-rich alloys are mechanically unstable, however the alloys becomemechanically stablewith increasing content of V in the system. We observe a nonlinear dependence of the alloys Youngs moduli in a vicinity of the mechanical stabilization and suggest that this effect can be used to design alloys with low values of the elastic moduli. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ; Funding Agencies|Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation [K2-2016-013, 211]; Swedish Research Council [2015-04391]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU) [2009 00971]