The fragility of alkali silicate glass melts: Part of a universal topological pattern

Abstract The compositional variation of the fragility of alkali silicate glasses is shown to mimic that of most all other network forming oxide glasses when graphed as a function of a coarse-grained network connectivity which incorporates rigid structural units associated with intermediate range order. Following procedures established previously, we demonstrate how this coarse graining for both sodium and potassium silicate glasses is achieved using a variety of intermediate range order structures reported in the literature.