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a b s t r a c tFatigue behavior of a cold-rolled two-phase Al 0.5 CoCrCuFeNi high-entropy alloy (HEA) was studied. Some specimens were fabricated, using commercial-purity raw materials, while others were manufactured with high-purity components. Scatter in the fatigue life of the commercial-purity samples was found in the stress vs. lifetime plot (S-N curve). However, the high-purity samples showed less scatter, and fatigue life is predictable using fatigue statistics. The fatigue property of the alloy is comparable with and may even outperform many commercial alloys. Fatigue cracking is promoted by shrinkage pores with a size of $5 lm, while mechanical nanotwinning was found to be the main deformation mechanism before crack-initiation and during crack propagation by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Two orientations of dense nanotwins were found at the crack-initiation site, while less-dense nanotwins were found away from the crack initiation site. The nanotwinning behavior resulted in strengthening of the alloy and, consequently, high fatigue strength (383 ± 71 MPa). Moreover, statistical models were applied to predict fatigue life, suggesting that using improved fabrication processes and/or high-purity raw materials may enhance the fatigue behavior and scatter by reducing the number of fabrication microcracks and pores in the test samples.Published by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Acta Materialia Inc.

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High-entropy alloys (HEAs) are new alloys that contain five or more elements in roughly-equal proportion. We present new experiments and theory on the deformation behavior of HEAs under slow stretching (straining), and observe differences, compared to conventional alloys with fewer elements. For a specific range of temperatures and strain-rates, HEAs deform in a jerky way, with sudden slips that make it difficult to precisely control the deformation. An analytic model explains these slips as avalanches of slipping weak spots and predicts the observed slip statistics, stress-strain curves, and their dependence on temperature, strain-rate, and material composition. The ratio of the weak spots’ healing rate to the strain-rate is the main tuning parameter, reminiscent of the Portevin-LeChatellier effect and time-temperature superposition in polymers. Our model predictions agree with the experimental results. The proposed widely-applicable deformation mechanism is useful for deformation control and alloy design.