Work hardening behavior of hot-rolled metastable Fe50Co25Ni10Al5Ti5Mo5 medium-entropy alloy: in situ neutron diffraction analysis.

Metastability engineering is a strategy to enhance the strength and ductility of alloys via deliberately lowering phase stability and prompting deformation-induced martensitic transformation. The advantages of the strategy are widely exploited by ferrous medium-entropy alloys (MEAs) that exhibit phase transformation from metastable face-centered cubic (FCC) to hexagonal close-packed (HCP) or body-centered cubic (BCC) martensite and a significant increase in work hardening. Fe50Co25Ni10Al5Ti5Mo5 (at%) MEA is an example of such materials, which shows ~1.5 GPa of tensile strength assisted by exceptional work hardening from the deformation-induced BCC martensitic transformation. In this work, the martensitic transformation and its effect on the mechanical response of the MEA were studied by in situ neutron diffraction under tensile loading. Strain-induced BCC martensite started forming rapidly from the beginning of plastic deformation, reaching a phase fraction of ~100% when deformed to ~10% of true strain. Lattice strain and phase stress evolution indicate that stress was dynamically partitioned onto the newly formed BCC martensite, which is responsible for the work hardening response and high flow stress of the MEA. This work shows how great a role FCC to BCC martensitic transformation can play in enhancing the mechanical properties of ferrous MEAs.

Ultrahigh high-strain-rate superplasticity in a nanostructured high-entropy alloy.

Superplasticity describes a material's ability to sustain large plastic deformation in the form of a tensile elongation to over 400% of its original length, but is generally observed only at a low strain rate (~10-4 s-1), which results in long processing times that are economically undesirable for mass production. Superplasticity at high strain rates in excess of 10-2 s-1, required for viable industry-scale application, has usually only been achieved in low-strength aluminium and magnesium alloys. Here, we present a superplastic elongation to 2000% of the original length at a high strain rate of 5 × 10-2 s-1 in an Al9(CoCrFeMnNi)91 (at%) high-entropy alloy nanostructured using high-pressure torsion. The high-pressure torsion induced grain refinement in the multi-phase alloy combined with limited grain growth during hot plastic deformation enables high strain rate superplasticity through grain boundary sliding accommodated by dislocation activity.

Effect of Annealing on Microstructure and Tensile Behavior of CoCrNi Medium Entropy Alloy Processed by High-Pressure Torsion.

Annealing of severely plastic deformed materials is expected to produce a good combination of strength and ductility, which has been widely demonstrated in conventional materials. In the present study, high-pressure torsion processed CoCrNi medium entropy alloy consisting of a single face-centered cubic (FCC) phase with a grain size of ~50 nm was subjected to different annealing conditions, and its effect on microstructure and mechanical behavior was investigated. The annealing of high-pressure torsion processed CoCrNi alloy exhibits partial recrystallization and near full recrystallization based on the annealing temperature and time. The samples annealed at 700 °C for 2 min exhibit very fine grain size, a high fraction of low angle grain boundaries, and high kernel average misorientation value, indicating partially recrystallized microstructure. The samples annealed for a longer duration (>2 min) exhibit relatively larger grain size, a low fraction of low angle grain boundaries, and low kernel average misorientation value, indicating nearly full recrystallized microstructure. The annealed samples with different microstructures significantly influence the uniform elongation, tensile strength, and work hardening rate. The sample annealed at 700 °C for 15 min exhibits a remarkable combination of tensile strength (~1090 MPa) and strain to failure (~41%).