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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2011
A detailed understanding of the structure of ordered intermetallic systems is difficult at best, causing a serious disconnect in the typical process-structure-properties approach to alloy development. Basic information, like the site substitution schemes of various alloying elements, partitioning behavior in multiphase alloys, and the dependence of these phenomena with concentration and higher order alloying additions is necessary to predict and understand the effect of various alloying schemes on the physical and mechanical properties of a material. It is only recently that theoretical methods can begin to provide useful insight in these areas, as most current techniques suffer from strong limitations including the type and number of elements that can be considered and the crystallographic structure of the resulting phases. The Bozzolo-Ferrante-Smith (BFS) method for alloys was designed to overcome these limitations, with the intent of providing a useful tool for the theoretical prediction of fundamental properties and the structure of multi-component systems. The role or potential contributions of theoretical procedures like the BFS method to the alloy design process are discussed with a specific emphasis on work that has been conducted on NiAl-based alloys. After a brief description of the method and its range of applications, we will concentrate on the usefulness of BFS as an alloy design tool. The theoretical determination of site substitution schemes for individual as well as collective alloying additions to NiAl, the resulting behavior with respect to solubility limits and second phase formation, and the concentration dependence of the lattice parameter will be demonstrated.