Hypercooling and the specific heat capacity of Cu-Ni alloy

The average heat capacities of the undercooled Cu-25%Ni, Cu-33%Ni, Cu-50%Ni and Cu-75%Ni melts were derived by using the glass fluxing technique. The undercoolings of the above alloys were 381, 380, 349 and 431 K, respectively, which exceed the critical undercooling of the classical nucleation theory. A detailed analysis of the heat transfer condition during the solidification process was carried out, which suggested a linear relationship between the time duration of thermal arrest t_a and the undercooling ΔT. The hypercooling points of the alloys, derived from the relationship between t_a and ΔT, were determined to be 457.7, 461.1, 448.4 and 528.3 K, respectively.