On the elastic constants of polycrystalline argon

Abstract

A recent calculation of the explicit temperature dependence of the quasiharmonic second-order elastic constants of the f.c.c. lattice with arbitrary nearest-neighbour central forces is used to calculate the bulk modulus, polycrystalline shear modulus and the polycrystalline longitudinal wave velocity for argon. The numerical calculations are based on a Mie-Lennard-Jones (12–6) potential and cover the range 0<T ≲ 60°K. There is reasonable agreement with available experimental data. At the highest temperatures comparison of the theoretical and experimental bulk modulus suggests that higher order anharmonic effects may be important for solid argon.