First results from diffusion measurements in liquid multicomponent Al-based alloys

The interdiffusion coefficients in AlNiCe melts with a mean composition of Al77Ni20Ce3 and Al87Ni10Ce3 have been measured at 1373 and 1273 K, respectively, by means of the long-capillary technique. Darken’s concept of combining linearly the diffusive flux with gradients of the chemical potential has been invoked in order to study the influence of thermodynamic forces on diffusion in metallic multicomponent melts. The enhancement of interdiffusion compared to self diffusion scales with the thermodynamic factor and the interdiffusion coefficients scale linearly with the respective thermodynamic factors, which proves Darken’s concept for metallic multicomponent melts.