A systematic study of grain boundary segregation and grain boundary formation energy using a new copper–nickel embedded-atom potential

Abstract In this atomistic study on the copper–nickel system, a new embedded-atom alloy potential between copper and nickel is fitted to experimental data on the mixing enthalpy, taking available potentials for the pure components from literature. The resulting phase boundaries of the new potential are in very good agreement with a recent CALPHAD prediction. Using this new potential, a high angle symmetrical tilt Σ 5 and a coherent Σ 3 twin grain boundary (GB) are chosen for a systematic investigation of equilibrium GB segregation in the semi-grandcanonical ensemble at temperatures from 400 K to 800 K. Applying thermodynamically accurate integration techniques, the GB formation energies are calculated exactly and as an absolute value for every temperature and composition, which also enables the evaluation of GB excess entropies. The thorough thermodynamic model of GBs developed by Frolov and Mishin is excellently confirmed by the simulations quantitatively, if the impact of both segregation and GB tension on the change in GB formation energy is accounted for. In the case of the Σ 3 coherent GB, it turns out that the change in GB formation energy at low temperatures is for the most part attributed to the GB tension, while segregation only has a small influence. This demonstrated effect of GB tensions should also be taken into account in the interpretation of experiments.