CALJ'HALI Vol.14,No.2, pp.

lll-114,
1990 0364-5916190
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SCHEIL REACTION SCHEME BY COMPUTER

M. Hillert and B. Sundman

Div. Pysical Metallurgy
Royal Institute of Technology
S-10044 Stockholm, Sweden

It is rather common to represent the relations between sharp phase transformations in a

ternary system in a so-called Scheil reaction scheme (1). The example shown in Fig. 1 is a part of the
Fe-Cr-C system published by Rivlin(2). This method is often used in compilations of ternary phase
diagrams. However, the Scheil diagrams are drawn in a rather arbitrary way and most attention is
given to aesthetic considerations. In view of.the widely spread use of computerized calculations of
phase diagrams, today there is a need to introduce a strict definition of such diagrams. A definition
will now be proposed and it is suggested that it be adopted for the production of computer-plotted
reaction schemes.
The basic problem is to make a two-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional potential
phase diagram, usually a ternary diagram at a constant pressure of 1 bar. First, in order to get axes
for the components going from 0 to 1 rather than from - 00to 0, chemical activities could be used rather
than chemical potentials. However, in order to get something similar to the Gibbs composition
triangle we could define three new variables, one of them being dependent on the other two because
their sum is equal to unity,

Vj = tlj/Zai

Then a projection is made from the dependent component to the opposite binary side of the system. For
an A-B-C system projected from the A component, this means that the axis in the projected phase
diagram is aC/(aB + aC>. The binary A-B system is projected on the left-hand side and the binary A-
C system on the right-hand side. In reality, the projected diagram is drawn by simply plotting aC/(aB
+ aC) versus temperature for all the three-phase equilibria. In the near future there might be several
databanks available which can trace three-phase equilibria in a ternary system automatically and
then calculate how the activities vary along the lines. An example is the Thermo-Calc databank(3).
with was used in the present calculations. of the Fe-Cr-C system. The data came from Andersson(4).
Of course, for each component one must choose a common state of reference and in the present case
the liquid was chosen for all the components.
It may be convenient to make the computer print a number beside each point representing an
invariant equilibrium and also a separate list giving the equilibrium temperatures and the phase
transformations occurring on cooling. Fig. 2 shows such a diagram for the Fe-Cr-C system
presented in Fig. 1 and Fig. 3 gives a magnification of the left-hand part. In order to increase the
visibility, lines intersecting each other in the projection but not in the three-dimensional diagram
have been partly omitted. The transformations are listed in Table I.
It is also possible to define the axis in the projected diagram in terms of chemical potentials,
Vj = ~jj/Z~i = ln(aj)/Cln(ai)

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Received 16 February 1990

111
112 M. HILLERT and B. SUNDMAN

Table I. Sharp transformations in the Fe&-C system.

1. 1579K L + M3C2 + M7C3 + graphite
2. 1296K L+bcc+fcc+M23c6
3. 1289K L + M23C6 -_) fee + M7C3
4. 1187K L + M7C3 + graphite + I@C
5. 1160K L + M7C3 + fee + M3C
6. 1149K L + fee + M3C + graphite

C-Fa C-Cc-Fa

ki t5e5*

L*M3CZ+ M7C3* C

PI 1493. M7C3 lM3C2 lC

1 LdFa+yFa ] xLIF.?Fa l *

u1 1275’
I

L*bFe +yFa*M23Ce

u2 1255’

L+M23C, HW+M-ICO

FIG. 1 Part of the reaction scheme for the Fe-Cr-C system according to RivIin
 SCHEIL REACTION SCHEME BY COMPUTER 113

I I I I I I I I I
1900

1800 -

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

aCr /(aCr+aFe)
Fe-C Cr-C

FIG. 2 Computer-calculated and -plotted reaction scheme for the Fe-C&C

system, to be compared with Fig. 1. The invariant equilibria are listed in
Table I.

I I I
1600

1550 -

A 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

T
aCr /(aCr+aFe)
Fe-C

FIG. 3 Magnification of Fig. 2.

114 M. HILLERT and B. SUNDMAN

This method has the advantage that it makes more sense to add potentials than activities. In the
present note, activities were preferred because of the close connection between avtivities and
composition, in particular for the liquid phase.
Andersson (5) applied Scheil’s method to a quaternary system by keeping pressure and the
activity of one component constant. The new proposal can be applied to such cases also. The axis in
the projected phase diagram would still be ag/(aB + aC) if aB is the variable kept constant.

References

1. E. Scheil, Arch. Eisenh.w. 9 (1935361571

2. V.G. Rivlin, Internat. Metals Reviews 29(1984)299
3. B. Sundman, B. Jansson and J.-O. Andersson, CALPHAD 9(1985)153-190
4. J-O. Andersson, Met. Trans. 19A(1988)627
5. J-O. Andersson, A thermodynamic evaluation of the Fe-Cr-MO-C system, Trita -Mac 323, Royal
Inst. Techn. Stockholm 1986.