J. Mater. Sci. Technol. ›› 2024, Vol. 197: 215-226.DOI: 10.1016/j.jmst.2024.01.074

Special Issue: High & Medium entropy materials 2024 Modeling, computation, and simulation 2024

• Research Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

A thermodynamic extremal principle incorporating the constraints from both fluxes and forces. II. Application to isothermal diffusion in multi-principal element alloys

Xin Lia, Dexu Cuia, Jianbao Zhanga,*, Zhiyuan Huanga, Haifeng Wanga,*, Yuhong Zhaob,*, Weimin Liua,c   

  1. aState Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Center of Advanced Lubrication and Seal Materials, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China;
    bSchool of Materials Science and Engineering, North University of China, Taiyuan 030051, China;
    cState Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
  • Received:2023-08-25 Revised:2023-12-29 Accepted:2024-01-14 Published:2024-10-20 Online:2024-10-15
  • Contact: *E-mail addresses: zjb@nwpu.edu.cn (J. Zhang), haifengw81@nwpu.edu.cn (H. Wang), zhaoyuhong@nuc.edu.cn (Y. Zhao)

Abstract: The thermodynamic extremal principle incorporating the constraints from both fluxes and forces proposed in part I was applied to isothermal diffusion in multi-principal element alloys (MPEAs) to propose the so-called double-constraint model. The model cannot reduce physically to the previous model considering only the constraint from fluxes (i.e., the single-constraint model) but in special cases reduces to Fick’s law and Darken’s equation, showing its reliability. Similar to the previous pair-wise model and single-constraint model, the solutes and solvent do not need to be defined in advance in the double-constraint model and the model can be also applied directly to diffusion in MPEAs. Applications to isothermal diffusion in CoCrFeMnNi pseudo-binary diffusion couple and CoCrFeNi, CoCrFeMnNi body-diagonal diffusion couples showed that the present double-constraint model overall predicted better the experimental results than the previous single-constraint model, indicating again the necessity to consider the constraints from both fluxes and forces in the phenomenological theory of Onsager.

Key words: Thermodynamic extremal principle, Diffusion, Phenomenological theory of Onsager, Multi-principal element alloys