Structure, energetics, and mechanical stability of Fe-Cu bcc alloys from first-principles calculations

Abstract

Atomic volumes, magnetic moments, mixing energies, and the elastic properties of bcc Fe1-xCux solid solutions are studied by ab initio calculations based on the cluster expansion framework. For the calculation of concentration-dependent elastic moduli in disordered solid solutions, we introduce a generalization of the cluster expansion technique that is designed to handle tensorial quantities in high-symmetry phases. Calculated mixing energies, atomic volumes, and magnetic moments are found to be in good agreement with available measurements for metastable alloys prepared through nonequilibrium processing techniques. Additionally, the predicted variations of the bulk modulus and shear moduli..