Effect of alloying elements on microstructure, mechanical and damping properties of Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu high-entropy alloys

doi:10.1016/j.jmst.2018.02.026

Abstract

Abstract:

A series of new Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu high-entropy alloys were prepared by arc melting and suction casting. It is found that with the addition of Cu, the structure of the alloys evolved from BCC + BCC1 phases to BCC + FCC phases. With increase of Cu, the volume fraction of the Cu-Mn-rich FCC phase increased, and the morphology of the FCC phase transformed from granular particles to long strips and blocks. Compared with other reported HEAs, the Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu HEAs exhibit a good balance between strength and ductility. The CrMn0.3FeVCu0.06 alloy with granular FCC particles exhibits the highest compressive yield strength (1273 MPa) and excellent ductility (ε_f = 50.7%). Quantitative calculations for different strengthening mechanisms demonstrate that dislocation and precipitate strengthening are responsible for high strength of the CrMn0.3FeVCu0.06 alloy, while the solid solution strengthening effect is very low because of its small atomic-size difference. In addition, the CrMn0.3FeVCu0.06 alloy exhibits good damping capacity due to its high dislocation and interface damping effects. Therefore, the dislocation density and distribution of FCC phase are the crucial factors for improvement of both mechanical properties and damping capacity of the HEAs.

Key words: High-entropy alloy, Phase formation, Mechanical properties, Damping capacity

Ruokang Song, Fan Ye, Chenxi Yang, Sujun Wu. Effect of alloying elements on microstructure, mechanical and damping properties of Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu high-entropy alloys[J]. J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2018, 34(11): 2014-2021.

Figures/Tables 14

Table 1 The nominal chemical compositions (at.%) of the Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu HEAs.

Alloys	Sample name	Cr	Mn	Fe	V	Cu
CrMnFeV	C0	25.0	25.0	25.0	25.0	0.0
CrMn0.3FeVCu0.06	C1	29.8	8.9	29.8	29.8	1.7
CrMn0.5FeVCu0.10	C2	27.8	13.8	27.8	27.8	2.8
CrMn0.7FeVCu0.14	C3	26.0	18.3	26.0	26.0	3.7
CrMnFeVCu0.20	C4	23.8	23.8	23.8	23.8	4.8

Fig. 1. (a) X-ray diffraction patterns of the Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu HEAs; (b) enlarged view of (111) peaks of the FCC phases in the C1-C4 alloys.

Fig. 2. SEM images of the Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu HEAs: (a) C0 alloy; (b) enlarged view of the fine particles in the area marked with a yellow circle in (a); (c) C1 alloy; (d) C2 alloy; (e) C3 alloy; (f) C4 alloy.

Fig. 3. TEM bright-field images and SAED patterns of the C0 and C1 alloys: (a) and (b) C0 alloy; (c) and (d) C1 alloy; (e) SAED pattern of the matrix and fine particle in (a), corresponding to a BCC phase and a BCC1 phase along [011] zone axis; (f) SAED pattern of the fine particle in (a) along [001] zone axis, indicating that the BCC1 phase is B2 ordered phase; (g) and (h) SAED patterns of the matrix and interdendritic phase in (c), corresponding to a BCC phase along[1ˉ?13]zone axis and an FCC phase along [011] zone axis, respectively.

Table 2 Chemical compositions (at.%) of the Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu high-entropy alloys determined by SEM-EDS.

Alloys	Phases	Cr	Mn	Fe	V	Cu
C0	BCC phase	25.3	24.7	25.8	24.2	-
C0	BCC1 phase	22.5	26.5	23.6	27.4	-
C1	BCC phase	33.0	6.9	28.7	29.9	1.5
C1	FCC phase	1.2	25.6	1.0	1.5	70.7
C2	BCC phase	32.4	10.3	23.9	31.7	1.7
C2	FCC phase	1.0	27.0	0.9	1.0	70.1
C3	BCC phase	31.5	13.8	23.5	29.1	2.1
C3	FCC phase	1.1	26.9	1.4	1.3	69.3
C4	BCC phase	27.7	17.8	26.2	26.1	2.2
C4	FCC phase	0.9	27.4	1.1	1.2	69.4

Fig. 4. Compressive true stress-strain curves of the Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu HEAs.

Table 3 Mechanical properties of the Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu HEAs at room temperature.

Alloys	σ_y (MPa)	σ_max (MPa)	ε_f (%)	Hardness (HV)
C0	727	946	53.8	383
C1	1273	1543	50.7	451
C2	1087	1562	49.2	473
C3	1068	1385	49.8	445
C4	862	1135	48.7	424

Fig. 5. Effect of strain amplitude on internal friction Q-1 for the C1 and C2 alloys at 1 Hz and 25 °C.

Fig. 6. Frequency dependence of internal friction Q-1 for the C1 and C2 alloys at strain amplitude of 7 × 10-4.

Table 4 Mixing enthalpies (kJ/mol) of unlike atomic pairs calculated by Miedema’s method [30].

Elements (radius, nm)	V	Cr	Mn	Fe	Cu
V (0.134)	-	-2	-1	-7	5
Cr (0.127)	-2	-	2	-1	12
Mn (0.130)	-1	2	-	0	4
Fe (0.126)	-7	-1	0	-	13
Cu (0.128)	5	12	4	13	-

Table 5 Summary of parameters δ, Ω, ΔH mix and ΔS mix calculated by Eqs. (1), (2), (3), (4) for analyzing structure stability of the Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu HEAs.

Alloys	δ (%)	Ω	ΔH_mix (kJ/mol)	ΔS mix(JK^-1mol^-1)
C0	2.40	9.76	-2.25	11.53
C1	2.69	7.99	-2.81	11.36
C2	2.53	12.01	-1.94	11.98
C3	2.46	18.89	-1.25	12.33
C4	2.36	48.20	-0.49	12.57

Table 6 Formation enthalpies (ΔHf) of the lowest energy structures of binary compounds containing the elements: V, Cr, Mn, Fe and Cu (calculated by Troparevsky’s approach [32]), and the specified enthalpy range for formation of single-phase structure in the HEAs concerned.

Elements/ΔH_f (meV)	V	Cr	Mn	Fe	Cu
V	0	-88	-286	-176	54
Cr	-88	0	-110	-8	108
Mn	-286	-110	0	9	29
Fe	-176	-8	9	0	65
Cu	54	108	29	65	0
Alloys	C0	C1	C2	C3	C4
Enthalpy range (meV)	-137 -37	-139 -37	-145 -37	-147 -37	-147 -37

Fig. 7. Compressive strength versus fracture strain for the investigated Cr-Mn-Fe-V-Cu HEAs in comparison with those of BCC and BCC + FCC structured HEAs in the literature [13,15,29,[32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37]].

Fig. 8. (a) HRTEM image of BCC matrix of the C1 alloy; (b) the corresponding FFT pattern of the area marked with a yellow square in (a); (c) the inverse FFT image showing high dislocation density (‘T’ indicates the dislocation).

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