Abstract:
The difference in Gibbs free energy between liquid and solid phases, usually
expressed by authors as )G, appears in several theoretical formulations on
nucleation and crystal growth. Approximations for )G are used extensively to
gain an insight into the solidification phenomenon when thermophysical
parameters are not known. In this work, the most commonly used models are
applied to four bulk metallic glasses at temperatures starting from that of glass
transition. An arithmetic mean of Thomson–Spaepen and Hoffman’s
approximations yield significant improvements over new models incorporating
nonlinear relationships involving undercoolings.
