Unveiling the precipitation behavior and mechanical properties of Co-free Ni47-xFe30Cr12Mn8AlxTi3 high-entropy alloys

doi:10.1016/j.jmst.2021.11.058

Abstract

Abstract:

Precipitate hardening is considered as an effective method to strengthen High- and medium-entropy alloys (HEAs and MEAs), especially the recently developed Co-free HEAs/MEAs. In this work, a systematic study on precipitation and mechanical behaviors of a Co-free HEAs with dilute amount of Al addition, Ni_47-_xFe₃₀Cr₁₂Mn₈Al_xTi₃ (x = 2 at.%, 5 at.% and 7 at.%), is presented. Results shown that the Ni₄₅Fe₃₀Cr₁₂Mn₈Al₂Ti₃ has a face-centered cubic (FCC) + L1₂ + η three-phased structure. With increasing Al content, the formation of η phase is inhibited, accompanying with an enhanced formation of B2 phase, and FCC + L1₂ + B2 three-phased structure is thus observed in alloys with x = 5 and 7. The constrained lattice mismatch between FCC matrix and L1₂ precipitates is decreased with increasing Al content, leading to an enhanced precipitation behavior of L1₂ phase. As a result of microstructural evolution, the mechanical properties of the aged HEAs changed: the Ni₄₂Fe₃₀Cr₁₂Mn₈Al₅Ti₃ alloy exhibits a better combination of a yield strength of 661 MPa and tensile ductility of 29.7% as compared to the 2 at.% Al alloyed HEA; and addition of Al beyond 5 at.% results in an increase of strength with a large expense of ductility. We believe that the present work is helpful for developing high-performance Co-free HEAs/MEAs strengthened by nanoprecipitates via composition optimizing.

Key words: High-entropy alloys, Microstructures, Precipitation behavior, Mechanical properties

Jiantao Fan, Liming Fu, Yanle Sun, Feng Xu, Yi Ding, Mao Wen, Aidang Shan. Unveiling the precipitation behavior and mechanical properties of Co-free Ni_47-_xFe₃₀Cr₁₂Mn₈Al_xTi₃ high-entropy alloys[J]. J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2022, 118: 25-34.

Figures/Tables 13

Fig. 1. Microstructures of aged A2T3 (a1-c1), A5T3 (a2-c2) and A7T3 (a3-c3) HEAs. (a1-a3) XRD profiles, (b1-b3) EBSD inverse pole figures and (c1-c3) EBSD phase maps.

Table 1. Grain size of FCC matrix (excluding annealing twins), mean particle size and volume fraction of L12 precipitates of aged A2T3, A5T3 and A7T3 HEAs. The size of DPs was evaluated from interlamellar spacings.

HEA	Grain size (μm)	Precipitate size (nm)		Volume fraction (vol.%)
Empty Cell	Empty Cell	DP	CP	Empty Cell
A2T3	58 ± 23	59.9 ± 3.1	47.7 ± 2.5	16 ± 1 20 ± 2 21 ± 1
A5T3	46 ± 12	46.4 ± 2.8	35.8 ± 3.1
A7T3	23 ± 10	28.0 ± 3.6	26.2 ± 2.4

Fig. 2. (a1-a3) SEM images, (b1-b3) bright-field TEM images in aged A2T3 (a1, b1), A5T3 (a2, b2) and A7T3 (a3, b3) HEAs.

Fig. 3. Particle size distribution of CPs and DPs in aged A2T3 (a), A5T3 (b) and A7T3 (c) HEAs. Note that the particle size of DPs was evaluated from interlamellar spacings.

Fig. 4. Mechanical properties of A2T3, A5T3 and A7T3 HEAs. (a) Engineering stress-strain curves. (b) The strain-hardening rates as a function of true strain. As for the aged HEAs, strain-hardening curves were divided into three stages by black dash lines.

Table 2. Tensile properties of the present HEAs in recrystallized and aged conditions.

Sample ID	Condition	YS (MPa)	UTS (MPa)	UE (%)	TE (%)
A2T3	Recrystallized	212 ± 16	931 ± 10	41 ± 2.0	45 ± 2.5
A5T3	Recrystallized	251 ± 12	679 ± 17	59.9 ± 3.0	67.3 ± 2.0
A7T3	Recrystallized	378 ± 15	638 ± 12	56 ± 1.5	60 ± 1.8
A2T3	Aged	572 ± 20	1084 ± 17	31.1 ± 1.4	34.9 ± 2.3
A5T3	Aged	661 ± 18	1117 ± 25	29.7 ± 2.1	33.6 ± 1.5
A7T3	Aged	777 ± 13	1233 ± 21	25.3 ± 1.8	28.1 ± 2.1

Fig. 5. TEM micrographs showing deformation substructures of the aged A5T3 HEA at the tensile strains: (a) 1%, (c) 8% and (d) 25%. (b) A close-up view of the region marked by the red rectangle in (a) revealing that dislocations shear through L12 precipitates.

Fig. 6. SEM micrographs for fracture morphologies of aged A2T3 (a, d), A5T3 (b, e) and A7T3 (c, f) HEAs, where (d), (e), (f) are magnified images of the rectangle regions enclosed in (a), (b) and (c), respectively.

Fig. 7. (a) The mean sizes of FCC grains (black solid line), CPs (red solid line) and DPs (red dash line) in the aged HEAs as a function of Al content. (b) Dependence of mechanical properties (YS, UTS, UE and TE) of the aged HEAs on the content of Al.

Table 3. Lattice parameters and the constrained lattice parameter misfit (ε) between FCC matrix and L12 precipitates of the three aged HEAs, measured by the deconvolution of (311) peaks in XRD.

Sample ID	a (nm)		ε (%)
Sample ID	Matrix	L1₂	ε (%)
A2T3	0.360136	0.359411	0.202
A5T3	0.360164	0.359484	0.189
A7T3	0.360168	0.359511	0.183

Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of the microstructural evolution with increasing content of Al element from 2 at.% to 7 at.% in the current Co-free HEAs under recrystallized and aged conditions.

Fig. 9. Experimental YS and calculated strengthening contributions from σ0, σs and σg, and σp for the recrystallized and aged HEAs.

Fig. 10. EBSD characterizations of the aged A7T3 HEA after tensile deformation. (a) EBSD KAM map, (b) magnified KAM image (upper panel) and phase map (lower panel) for the solid square area enclosed in (a).

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Unveiling the precipitation behavior and mechanical properties of Co-free Ni_47-_xFe₃₀Cr₁₂Mn₈Al_xTi₃ high-entropy alloys

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