Thermodynamic assessment of the Al-C-Fe system

The Al-C-Fe system was assessed in the framework of the CALPHAD approach. Through the critical review of thermochemical properties of liquid Al-Fe alloys, the binary Al-Fe description was revised to agree better with the experimental data. The partitioning model based on the Compound Energy Formalism (CEF) was utilized to describe the disordered and ordered bcc, fcc and κ phases. Moreover, ab initio calculations were performed to determine the enthalpies of formation of the ordered structures based on the bcc and fcc lattices in the binary Al-Fe and for the end-members of the κ phase in the ternary Al-C-Fe system. In order to simplify the database, the present work also employed a two-sublattice model to describe the B2 ordered phase in the Al-Fe system, which can be applied easily to diffusion simulations. Comprehensive comparison between the model-predicted and experimental data confirms that the present evaluation describe the Al-C-Fe system satisfactorily, especially the κ phase.