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Effect of Si alloying on the structural, thermal expansion, and magnetic properties of FeCoNiAlSix high-entropy alloys

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Abstract

In this study, a series of FeCoNiAlSix (x = 0, 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6) high-entropy alloys (HEAs) were prepared by mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering. The effects of Si alloying on the structural, thermal expansion, and magnetic properties of HEAs were investigated. The X-ray diffraction and microscopic results reveal that the crystal structure changes from FCC + BCC to single BCC phase with increasing Si content. By increasing Si content, the coefficient of thermal expansion decreases, especially at high temperatures, indicating that Si has a greater effect on improving the dimensional stability. In addition, the developed HEAs exhibit good saturation magnetization ~ 86.23 emu/g, low coercivity ~ 18.4 Oe, and high electrical resistivity ~ 84 µΩ.cm, indicating the present HEA can be used in soft magnetic applications. Furthermore, the hardness of HEAs increased from 510 ± 10 to 730 ± 10 HV with an increasing Si content due to formation of stable BCC phase. The present study demonstrates that alloying of Si facilitates a balance between desirable physical and mechanical properties.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (2021R1A2C1005478). This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2022R1I1A1A01055105).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon, 16499, Korea

    Cheenepalli Nagarjuna, Sheetal Kumar Dewangan & Byungmin Ahn

  2. Department of Energy Systems Research, Ajou University, Suwon, 16499, Korea

    Hansung Lee & Byungmin Ahn

  3. National Institute for Materials Science, Sengen 1-2-1, Tsukuba, 305-0047, Japan

    Babu Madavali

Authors
  1. Cheenepalli Nagarjuna
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  2. Sheetal Kumar Dewangan
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  3. Hansung Lee
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  4. Babu Madavali
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  5. Byungmin Ahn
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Contributions

CN contributed to Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – Original draft, Writing–Review & editing. SKD contributed to Investigation, Data curation, Writing – Review & editing. HL contributed to Data curation, Writing – Review & editing. BM contributed to Data curation, Writing – Review & editing. BA contributed to Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Review & Editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Byungmin Ahn.

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Nagarjuna, C., Dewangan, S.K., Lee, H. et al. Effect of Si alloying on the structural, thermal expansion, and magnetic properties of FeCoNiAlSix high-entropy alloys. J Mater Sci 59, 4281–4292 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-024-09474-y

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