Phase separation and glass-forming abilities of ternary alloys

The liquid phase miscibility gap was calculated in ternary glass-forming systems using the sub-regular solution model. We found that liquid miscibility gaps exist at low temperature in most of the reported ternary bulk-forming metallic glass systems even if enthalpies of mixing of constituent elements are all negative. The glass-forming ranges do not overlap with the miscibility gaps except in the Cu–Ti–Zr system, suggesting that glass-forming ability is low in the phase separating compositions.