Plastic deformation of directionally solidified ingots of binary and some ternary MoSi2/Mo5Si3 eutectic composites.

The high-temperature mechanical properties of directionally solidified (DS) ingots of binary and some ternary MoSi2/Mo5Si3 eutectic composites with a script lamellar structure have been investigated as a function of loading axis orientation and growth rate in a temperature range from 900 to 1500°C. These DS ingots are plastically deformed above 1000 and 1100 °C when the compression axis orientations are parallel to [1[Formula: see text]0]MoSi2 (nearly parallel to the growth direction) and [001]MoSi2, respectively. [1[Formula: see text]0]MoSi2-oriented DS eutectic composites are strengthened so much by forming a script lamellar microstructure and they exhibit yield stress values several times higher than those of MoSi2 single crystals of the corresponding orientation. The yield stress values increase with the decrease in the average thickness of MoSi2 phase in the script lamellar structure, indicating that microstructure refinement is effective in obtaining better high-temperature strength of these DS eutectic composites. Among the four ternary alloying elements tested (V, Nb, Ta and W), Ta is found to be the most effective in obtaining higher yield strength at 1400 °C.

Size effect, critical resolved shear stress, stacking fault energy, and solid solution strengthening in the CrMnFeCoNi high-entropy alloy.

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) comprise a novel class of scientifically and technologically interesting materials. Among these, equatomic CrMnFeCoNi with the face-centered cubic (FCC) structure is noteworthy because its ductility and strength increase with decreasing temperature while maintaining outstanding fracture toughness at cryogenic temperatures. Here we report for the first time by single-crystal micropillar compression that its bulk room temperature critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) is ~33-43 MPa, ~10 times higher than that of pure nickel. CRSS depends on pillar size with an inverse power-law scaling exponent of -0.63 independent of orientation. Planar ½ < 110 > {111} dislocations dissociate into Shockley partials whose separations range from ~3.5-4.5 nm near the screw orientation to ~5-8 nm near the edge, yielding a stacking fault energy of 30 ± 5 mJ/m2. Dislocations are smoothly curved without any preferred line orientation indicating no significant anisotropy in mobilities of edge and screw segments. The shear-modulus-normalized CRSS of the HEA is not exceptionally high compared to those of certain concentrated binary FCC solid solutions. Its rough magnitude calculated using the Fleischer/Labusch models corresponds to that of a hypothetical binary with the elastic constants of our HEA, solute concentrations of 20-50 at.%, and atomic size misfit of ~4%.