A MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS STUDY OF LIQUID-SOLID TRANSITIONS

A molecular- dynamics simulation on metallic systems is first described and then applied to examine both the nature of the supercooled-liquid to crystal transition and the characteristics of the metallic glass states. It appears that (a) as the cooling rate increases, the crystal-transition temperature decreases, thereby, the latent heat involved in the transition also decreases and (b) the cooling rate affects not only the glass-transition temperature but also the atomic structure of a rapidly quenched metal.