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Enhancing strength-ductility trade-off in a NiFeCoAl0.21Ti0.21W0.04 high-entropy alloy by introducing γ′ precipitation

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Abstract

In this study, we successfully prepared NiFeCoAl0.21Ti0.21W0.04 high-entropy alloy using vacuum arc melting technique and systematically investigated the mechanical properties, microstructure, and phase composition of the alloy using an electronic universal testing machine, EBSD, SEM, EDS, and TEM technologies. The results showed that the alloy can retain good ductility (~ 38%) while having high yield strength (~ 850 MPa). The alloy presented an FCC + L12 dual-phase structure, and the L12 precipitates are a nanoscale with an average size of ~ 63 nm and are highly coherent with the FCC matrix, which ensured excellent precipitation strengthening effect and thus high strength. We have calculated the contribution of the strengthening mechanisms present in the alloy to the strength of the alloy, and the results show that precipitation strengthening dominates among all strengthening mechanisms. At the same time, the formation of annealed twins acts as a barrier to grain growth during heat treatment, which also ensures good fine-grain strengthening. In conclusion, we have obtained an excellent strength-ductility trade-off relationship by introducing a nano-precipitation phase in the alloy that is coherent with the matrix, which is expected to guide the development of higher entropy alloys with superior properties.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the National Building Project of Application Demonstration Platform on New Materials Products (TC190H3ZV/2), National Natural Science Foundation of China (52161011), Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (2020GXNSFAA297060) for the financial support given to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, Hunan, People’s Republic of China

    Chaojie Liang, Yunlai Deng & Wenbo Zhu

  2. Light Alloy Research Institute, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, Hunan, People’s Republic of China

    Yunlai Deng

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Information Materials, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin, 541004, Guangxi, People’s Republic of China

    Chenglei Wang

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  1. Chaojie Liang
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  2. Yunlai Deng
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  4. Wenbo Zhu
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Contributions

CL was involved in Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing—original draft, and Visualization. YD contributed to Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing — review& editing, and Funding acquisition; CW was involved in Methodology, Resources, Funding acquisition. WZ contributed to Resources and Project administration.

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Correspondence to Wenbo Zhu.

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Liang, C., Deng, Y., Wang, C. et al. Enhancing strength-ductility trade-off in a NiFeCoAl0.21Ti0.21W0.04 high-entropy alloy by introducing γ′ precipitation. J Mater Sci 58, 12083–12096 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-023-08758-z

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