Elastic properties of vanadium-based alloys from first-principles theory

The effect of Cr and Ti on the fundamental mechanical properties of V-Cr-Ti alloys has been investigated using the all-electron exact muffin-tin orbitals method in combination with the coherent-potential approximation. The static lattice constant and elastic parameters have been calculated for the body-centered-cubic V _1-x-yCr _xTi _y (0 ≤ x,y ≤ 0.1) random solid solution as a function of composition. Our theoretical predictions are in good agreement with the available experimental data. Alloys along the equicomposition region are found to exhibit the largest shear and Young's modulus as a result of the opposite alloying effects obtained for the two cubic shear elastic constants. The classical solid-solution hardening (SSH) model predicts larger strengthening effect in V _1-yTi _y than in V _1-xCr _x. By considering a phenomenological expression for the ductile-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) in terms of Peierls stress and SSH, it is shown that the present theoretical results can account for the variations of DBTT with composition.