Fluid phase emergence from solid

Solid-fluid phase diagrams of binary hard sphere mixtures have been studied quite extensively using MC simulations. Kranendonk and Frenkel [202-205] and Kofke [206] have studied the solid-fluid equilibrium for binary hard sphere mixtures for the case of substitutionally disordered solid solutions. Several interesting features emerge from these studies. Azeotropy and solid-solid immiscibility appear very quickly in the phase diagram as the size ratio is changed from unity. This is primarily a consequence of the nonideality in the solid phase. Another aspect of these results concerns the empirical Hume-Rothery rule, developed in the context of metal alloy phase equilibrium, that mixtures of spherical molecules with diameter ratios below about 0.85 should exhibit only limited solubility in the solid phase [207]. The simulation results for hard sphere tend to be consistent with this rule. However, it should be noted that the Hume-Rothery rule was formulated in terms of the ratio of nearest neighbor distances in the pure metals rather than hard sphere diameters. Thus, this observation should be interpreted as an indication that molecular size effects are important in metal alloy equilibria rather than as a quantitative confirmation of the Hume-Rothery rule. 

Basic questions of the equilibrium theory of fluids are concerned with (1) an adequately detailed description of the emergence of a fluid phase from a solid or the transition between a hquid and its vapor, the phase transition problem, and (2) the prediction from first principles of the bulk thermodynamic properties of a fluid over the whole existence region of the fluid. We will consider primarily the second of these questions. All bulk thermodynamic properties of monatomic fluids follow from a knowledge of the equation of state. This chapter will review certain recent developments in the approximate elucidation of the equation of state of a particularly simple fluid, the classical hard sphere fluid. This fluid is composed of identical particles or molecules, obeying classical mechanical laws, which are rigid spheres of diameter a. Two such molecules interact with one another only when they collide elastically. 

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