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Spark plasma sintering of tungsten-based WTaVCr refractory high entropy alloys for nuclear fusion applications

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Abstract

W-based WTaVCr refractory high entropy alloys (RHEA) may be novel and promising candidate materials for plasma facing components in the first wall and diverter in fusion reactors. This alloy has been developed by a powder metallurgy process combining mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering (SPS). The SPSed samples contained two phases, in which the matrix is RHEA with a body-centered cubic structure, while the oxide phase was most likely Ta2VO6 through a combined analysis of X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). The higher oxygen affinity of Ta and V may explain the preferential formation of their oxide phases based on thermodynamic calculations. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) revealed an average grain size of 6.2 μm. WTaVCr RHEA showed a peak compressive strength of 2997 MPa at room temperature and much higher micro- and nano-hardness than W and other W-based RHEAs in the literature. Their high Rockwell hardness can be retained to at least 1000°C.

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Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CMMI-1762190. The research was performed in part in the Nebraska Nano-scale Facility: National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure and the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience (and/or NERCF), which are supported by the National Science Foundation under Award ECCS: 2025298, and the Nebraska Research Initiative. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07-051D14517 as part of a Nuclear Science User Facilities experiment.

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  1. Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA

    Yongchul Yoo, Xiang Zhang, Fei Wang, Xin Chen & Bai Cui

  2. Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA

    Xing-Zhong Li & Bai Cui

  3. Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Michael Nastasi

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  1. Yongchul Yoo
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Correspondence to Bai Cui.

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Bai Cui is an editorial board member for this journal and was not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article. The authors declare no potential conflict of interest.

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Yoo, Y., Zhang, X., Wang, F. et al. Spark plasma sintering of tungsten-based WTaVCr refractory high entropy alloys for nuclear fusion applications. Int J Miner Metall Mater 31, 146–154 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-023-2711-9

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