Elastic and dynamical properties of alkali silicate glasses from computer simulations techniques

This paper shows recent progresses in the field ofcomputer simulations of inorganic glasses. Moleculardynamics simulations and energy minimization methods havebeen applied to calculate the elastic and transport proper-ties of alkali silicate glasses of compositions xM2 O · (100 −x)SiO2 (with x = 0, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 % mol for M = Li,Na and K) and of a soda-lime glass with composition 15Na2 O·10CaO · 75SiO2 , which has been employed to ascertain theeffect of the replacement of CaO for Na2 O. The excellentagreement of the computed results with the experimentaldata highlights the important predictive and interpretativerole reached by computer simulations techniques.