CALPHAD

CALPHAD stands for CALculation of PHAse Diagrams. An equilibrium phase diagram is usually a diagram with axes for temperature and composition of a chemical system. It shows the regions where substances or solutions (i.e. phases) are stable and regions where two or more of them coexist. Phase diagrams are a very powerful tool for predicting the state of a system under different conditions and were initially a graphical method to rationalize experimental information on states of equilibrium. The CALPHAD approach is based on the fact that a phase diagram is a manifestation of the equilibrium thermodynamic properties of the system, which are the sum of the properties of the individual phases. It is thus possible to calculate a phase diagram by first assessing the thermodynamic properties of all the phases in a system.