Accurate prediction of high-temperature elastic constants of Ti0.5Al0.5N random alloy
Using highly accurate ab initio molecular dynamic simulations we calculate elastic constants of Ti0.5Al0.5N as a function of temperature up to 1500 K and compare the results with those obtained for TiN. We analyze the variation of the materials elastic anisotropy with temperature by calculating directional Youngs moduli and Poisson ratios on the (100), (110) and (111) crystallographic planes. We show that though the elastic moduli of Ti0.5Al0.5N strongly decrease upon heating, the elastic anisotropy increases with temperature unlike in TiN. Since several approximate approaches have recently been utilized to predict elastic constants of Ti0.5Al0.5N at elevated temperature we compare our results with published data and benchmark the different approximate schemes. Giving the fact that Ti(1-x)AlxN is a prototypical system for hard coating applications, we conclude that the recently developed symmetry imposed force constants approach combined with the temperature dependent effective potential method is accurate and computationally cost-effective for this material class. ; Funding Agencies|Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Wallenberg Scholar Grant) [KAW-2018.0194]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Areas in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkodping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU) [2009 00971]; SeRCAgency for Science Technology & Research (ASTAR); Swedish Research Council (VR)Swedish Research Council [2019-05600]; VINN Excellence Center Functional Nanoscale Materials (FunMat-2) [2016-05156]; Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research CouncilEuropean Commission [2016-07213]