Preliminarily optimizing glass-forming compositions in metal-metal type ternary alloy systems with a large-sized solvent element

Glass-forming ability (GFA) is crucial for designing bulk metallic glasses. In this work, it was found that when the content of the solvent element with an atomic radius larger than 1.58 Å in one ternary alloy system is fixed, their entropy of mixing (ΔSmix) vs. the enthalpy of mixing (ΔHmix) curve display a slant arc shape. The compositions locating around the inflection point of each ΔHmix vs. ΔSmix curve usually show an optimal GFA. Its feasibility was verified in Zr-, La-, and Ca-based ternary systems. By considering both calculated inflection points and experimental results, the optimizing glass-forming compositions can be roughly estimated by a proposed formula under limited conditions. Our studies could provide a simple method for preliminarily selecting good glass-formers when the content of the solvent element in one ternary alloy system is fixed.