Prediction of Glass Elasticity from Free Energy Density of Topological Constraints

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel theoretical method to predict the elastic modulus of glasses by analyzing the free energy density of topological constraints, achieving accurate results across various compositions and temperature ranges.

Contribution

The study presents a new approach linking free energy density of topological constraints to elastic modulus, enabling accurate predictions for diverse glass compositions and temperature dependencies.

Findings

Quantitative agreement with experimental data across glass types

Predicts temperature dependence of elastic modulus

Applicable to any network glass

Abstract

Despite the critical importance of the elastic properties of modern materials, there is not a singular model that can predict the modulus to an accuracy needed for industrial glass design. To address this problem, we propose an approach to calculate the elastic modulus based on the free energy density of topological constraints in the glass-forming network. Our approach shows quantitatively accurate agreement with glasses across a variety of compositional families. Moreover, using temperature-dependent constraint theory, the temperature dependence of the modulus can also be predicted. Our approach is general and theoretically can be applied to any network glass.