The influences of temperature and microstructure on the tensile properties of a CoCrFeMnNi high-entropy alloy

Abstract

An equiatomic CoCrFeMnNi high-entropy alloy, which crystallizes in the face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal structure, was produced by arc melting and drop casting. The drop-cast ingots were homogenized, cold rolled and recrystallized to obtain single-phase microstructures with three different grain sizes in the range 4-160 lm. Quasi-static tensile tests at an engineering strain rate of 10 À3 s À1 were then performed at temperatures between 77 and 1073 K. Yield strength, ultimate tensile strength and elongation to fracture all increased with decreasing temperature. During the initial stages of plasticity (up to $2% strain), deformation occurs by planar dislocation glide on the normal fcc slip system, {1 1 1}h1 1 0i, at all the temperatures and grain sizes investigated. Undissociated 1/2h1 1 0i dislocations were observed, as were numerous stacking faults, which imply the dissociation of several of these dislocations into 1/6h1 1 2i Shockley partials. At later stages ($20% strain), nanoscale deformation twins were observed after interrupted tests at 77 K, but not in specimens tested at room temperature, where plasticity occurred exclusively by the aforementioned dislocations which organized into cells. Deformation twinning, by continually introducing new interfaces and decreasing the mean free path of dislocations during tensile testing ("dynamic Hall-Petch"), produces a high degree of work hardening and a significant increase in the ultimate tensile strength. This increased work hardening prevents the early onset of necking instability and is a reason for the enhanced ductility observed at 77 K. A second reason is that twinning can provide an additional deformation mode to accommodate plasticity. However, twinning cannot explain the increase in yield strength with decreasing temperature in our high-entropy alloy since it was not observed in the early stages of plastic deformation. Since strong temperature dependencies of yield strength are also seen in binary fcc solid solution alloys, it may be an inherent solute effect, which needs further study.

Understanding the physical metallurgy of the CoCrFeMnNi high-entropy alloy: an atomistic simulation study

“…Micro-twining mechanism at cryogenic temperatures Micro-twins have been experimentally observed in most HEAs during deformation, [2][3][4]8,15 particularly at 77 K, and are regarded as a probable reason for excellent tensile properties at 77 K. Previous studies claimed that the low stacking fault energy (SFE) of HEAs is one of the probable reasons for the micro-twinning. 27,28 However, it is not fully understood why HEAs have a low SFE.…”

“…1 Particularly, the equiatomic CoCrFeMnNi HEAs have been reported to possess a wide-range of promising properties such as good hightemperature structural stability 2,3 and an excellent balance between strength and ductility, particularly at cryogenic temperatures, typically 77 K, the liquid nitrogen temperature. 4 Even though most HEAs have equiatomic or near equiatomic compositions, it is believed that the equiatomic composition would not be the optimum composition for a wide range of material properties.…”

“…Sluggish diffusion, [11][12][13] severe lattice distortion 14 and microtwinning [2][3][4]8,15 have been mentioned as probable reasons for the typical HEA properties. However, exact mechanisms for such structural reasons are not clearly known yet.…”

Solute strengthening in random alloys

“…Here, we concentrate on predictions for real materials. The Ni-Co-Fe-Cr-Mn family has been wellstudied by George and coworkers [95,96,97], who performed uniaxial tensile yield strengths versus temperature, strain-rate, and grain size d g in polycrystalline materials. The HEA strengths showed two contributions: a grain-size-dependent HallPetch (H-P) contribution σ H−P (d g ) and a chemical/alloying effect σ alloy that is modeled by solute strengthening theory.…”

“…For comparison with theoretical predictions, we thus only consider those alloys for which the measured H-P contribution can be subtracted from the total experimental strength, i.e. NiCoFeCr and NiCoFeMn alloys at various temperatures [95,97], and NiCo, NiFe, NiCoFe, and NiCoCr alloys at T = 293K [96] (for details see Ref. [61]).…”