The effectiveness of reference-free modified embedded atom method potentials demonstrated for NiTi and NbMoTaW

Prashanth Srinivasan*, Andrew I. Duff, Thomas A. Mellan, Marcel H.F. Sluiter, Lucia Nicola, Angelo Simone

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

20 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

One of the effective potentials that has proven to be very versatile and useful for describing metals is the modified embedded atom method (MEAM) potential. The reference-free version of the MEAM (RF-MEAM) potential provides more flexibility for fitting than the 2NN-MEAM because it also describes the pair potential as an explicit function. In this work, we present a methodology to fit RF-MEAM potentials to DFT data. We then evaluate the performance of the fitted potential by comparing MD simulations with experimental and DFT data. As an example, the methodology is applied to a binary and a quaternary alloy, namely NiTi and NbMoTaW. In the case of the equi-atomic NiTi shape memory alloy, our attention focuses on designing a potential that properly captures its mechanical behavior, given that the existing potentials fail to predict elastic constants in agreement with experiments. To reach our aim, we included the stress tensors of different high temperature NiTi configurations in the fitting database. The obtained RF-MEAM potential outperforms existing EAM and MEAM potentials in predicting the lattice and elastic constants of austenitic and martensitic phases as well as the corresponding transformation temperatures. To demonstrate the suitability of this methodology also for more complex systems, a RF-MEAM potential is fitted to model the multi-component NbMoTaW high-entropy alloy. Validation is achieved through comparison between observables obtained through the MD output and ab initio data. The article also reports key improvements to the optimization code MEAMfit v2 and the freely-available LAMMPS implementation of the RF-MEAM formalism. Most notably, resorting to analytic derivatives of the objective function with respect to the potential parameters rather than derivatives through finite differences, the time necessary for fitting has decreased by an order of magnitude.

Original languageEnglish
Article number065013
Number of pages19
JournalModelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering
Volume27
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • interatomic potential fitting
  • molecular dynamics
  • multi-component alloy
  • phase transformation, nickel titanium
  • reference-free MEAM

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