The Entropies of Melting of Metals

The melting process can be conceived as consisting of first an expansion, and then a disordering of the crystalline structure. The entropy contribution from the first effect is calculated by analogy with the process occurring in a volume expansion within an individual phase; the entropy contribution from the melting disorder is then obtained by difference from the measured entropy of fusion. Tentative conclusions of heuristic value are drawn from the relative magnitudes of the various quantities. A simple model for the melting process is adopted, making possible a correlation between the amount of disordering during melting and the structural contribution to the entropy of melting.