Dilatometric measurements and glass-forming ability in Pr-based bulk metallic glasses

Dilatometric measurements were conducted to obtain the average thermal expansion coefficients (αaver) of a series of Pr-based bulk metallic glasses at various experimental conditions. A correlation was found between αaver and the weighted average of the thermal expansion coefficients for the constituent elements. By assuming Lennard-Jones type potentials, the average nearest-neighbor distances (r1) and the depths of effective pair potentials (V0) were calculated. The values of r1 agreed well with the experimental results and V0 correlated with the glass-forming ability.