Cooling-Rate Effects in Sodium Silicate Glasses: Bridging the Gap between Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Experiments

Although molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are commonly used to predict the structure and properties of glasses, they are intrinsically limited to short time scales, necessitating the use of fast cooling rates. It is therefore challenging to compare results from MD simulations to experimental results for glasses cooled on typical laboratory time scales. Based on MD simulations of a sodium silicate glass with varying cooling rate (from 0.01 to 100 K/ps), here we show that thermal history primarily affects the medium-range order structure, while the short-range order is largely unaffected over the range of cooling rates simulated. This results in a decoupling between the enthalpy and volume relaxation functions, where the enthalpy quickly plateaus as the cooling rate decreases, whereas density exhibits a slower relaxation. Finally, we demonstrate that the outcomes of MD simulations can be meaningfully compared to experimental values if properly extrapolated to slower cooling rates

Pressure induced reactions amongst calcium aluminate hydrate phases

The compressibilities of two AFm phases (stratlingite and calcium hernicarboaluminate hydrate) and hydrogarnet were obtained up to 5 GPa by using synchrotron high-pressure X-ray powder diffraction with a diamond anvil cell. The AFm phases show abrupt volume contraction regardless of the molecular size of the pressure-transmitting media. This volume discontinuity could be associated to a structural transition or to the movement of the weakly bound interlayer water molecules in the AFm structure. The experimental results seem to indicate that the pressure-induced dehydration is the dominant mechanism especially with hygroscopic pressure medium. The Birch-Murnaghan equation of state was used to compute the bulk modulus of the minerals. Due to the discontinuity in the pressure-volume diagram, a two stage bulk modulus of each AFm phase was calculated. The abnormal volume compressibility for the AFm phases caused a significant change to their bulk modulus. The reliability of this experiment is verified by comparing the bulk modulus of hydrogarnet with previous studies.close

High pressure study of low compressibility tetracalcium aluminum carbonate hydrates 3CaO center dot Al2O3 center dot CaCO3 center dot 11H(2)O

Synchrotron X-ray diffraction data was collected from a sample of monocarboaluminate 3CaO center dot Al2O3 center dot CaCO3 center dot 11H(2)O from ambient pressure to 4.3 GPa. The refined crystal structure at ambient pressure is triclinic with parameters a=5.77(2) angstrom, b=8.47(5) angstrom, c=9.93(4) angstrom, alpha=64.6(2)degrees, beta=82.8(3)degrees, gamma=81.4(4)degrees, and space group of P1 or P (1) over bar. It showed some degree of perfectly reversible pressure-induced dehydration with a non-hygroscopic pressure-transmitting medium. However the dehydration effect does not critically affect a bulk modulus due to its strong framework. The isothermal bulk modulus of monocarboaluminate was found to be 53(5) GPa and 54(4)GPa with 3rd order and 2nd order Birch-Murnaghan Equation of state, respectively. That value is higher than for any other reported AFm or AFt phase. The pressure-volume behavior of the monocarboaluminate was compared with that of previous studied hemicarboaluminate.close1