J. Mater. Sci. Technol. ›› 2021, Vol. 73: 1-8.DOI: 10.1016/j.jmst.2020.08.065

• Research Article •     Next Articles

Significant reduction in friction and wear of a high-entropy alloy via the formation of self-organized nanolayered structure

Lu Yanga, Zhuo Chenga, Weiwei Zhua,b, Cancan Zhaoa, Fuzeng Rena,*()   

  1. aDepartment of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
    bInstitute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Science & Technology, University of Macau, Macau, China
  • Received:2020-07-01 Revised:2020-08-11 Accepted:2020-08-17 Published:2021-05-20 Online:2021-05-20
  • Contact: Fuzeng Ren
  • About author:*E-mail address: renfz@sustech.edu.cn (F. Ren).

Abstract:

Sliding wear-induced nanolayering and its positive impact on wear resistance have been observed in conventional binary alloys with a matrix of high stacking fault energy (SFE), but this concept has never been reported in high-entropy alloys (HEAs) with low SFE. Here, we design and fabricate a (CoCrFeNi)90Ag10 HEA, consisting of a face-center-cubic (fcc) CoCrFeNi HEA matrix with low SFE and uniformly dispersed Ag precipitates. In comparison with CoCrFeNi, a significant reduction in friction and wear was found in (CoCrFeNi)90Ag10 HEA through the spontaneous formation of nanolayered subsurface microstructure during wear. The finding suggests a novel approach for designing HEAs that can achieve low friction and wear.

Key words: High-entropy alloy, Sliding wear, Nanolayering