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Recent studies indicated that precipitation-hardened high-entropy alloys (HEAs) possess outstanding properties. It is difficult to obtain substantial precipitated particles for HEAs at the as-cast ...

In this study, we develop a non-equiatomic Co2CrNi1.5Al0.25Ti0.25 quinary medium-entropy alloy (MEA). The heterogeneous grain structure (HGS) (comprising residual deformed grains, micro-sized recrystallized grains and nano-sized recrystallized grains) and heterogeneous precipitation (HP) of the L12 phase corresponding to different kinds of grain structures are simultaneously introduced into the alloy by the well-designed thermomechanical processing. The alloy exhibits an ultra-high yield stress ( σ y ) of 1.73 GPa, ultimate tensile stress ( σ u ) of 1.89 GPa and remarkable total elongation ( e te ) up to 16.0% at 293 K, as well as ultra-high σ y up to 2.02 GPa, σ u up to 2.31 GPa and excellent e te up to 21.2% at 77 K. The synergy of multiple hardening mechanisms, mainly including back-stress hardening, precipitation hardening and pre-existed dislocation hardening contributes to the ultra-high σ y at 293 K and 77 K. The HGS promotes the continuously increased geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs) density, which, combined with the nano-spaced stacking fault (SF) networks, leads to the outstanding three-stage work-hardening behaviors during tensile tests at 293 K and 77 K. The simultaneous introduction of HGS and HP into this newly-developed MEA without brittle intermetallic phase, is a new effective method in designing high-performance alloys applied at both ambient and cryogenic temperatures.

A nanoscale sigma (σ) phase strengthened Co34.5Cr30Ni26.5Al5.4W3.6 (at, %) high entropy alloy was prepared and showed high strength and ductility. Dual phase microstructure that comprises face-centered cubic (FCC) matrix and nanoscale σ particles was obtained after thermomechanical procedures. The excellent ductility is attributed to its high strain hardening exponent FCC matrix that strongly favors uniform deformation and prevents crack propagation. The alloy shows an extremely high strain hardening rate and strength due to the interactions between the σ particles, deformation twins and dislocations. The design concept of “deformation twins + nano particles” should be considered for the design of additional double-high (strength and ductility) FCC HEAs in future work.

In the present study, a Co-rich CoCrNi-AlTi high-entropy alloy was designed and fabricated by hot forging and 700 °C for 8 h annealing process. The microstructure of the resultant alloy was composed of three multicomponent-phases with the face-centered cubic (FCC) structure, hexagonal close-packed (HCP) structure and L12 structure, respectively. The alloy exhibited a remarkable combination of tensile yield strength (gigapascal scale) and plasticity (uniform strain over 30%) at both room and cryogenic temperatures. The cooperative operation of multiple mechanisms consisting of refined-grain strengthening, second-phase strengthening, precipitation strengthening, stacking faults and phase-transformation toughening was suggested to be responsible for the excellent mechanical response.

Room-temperature tensile behavior and associated deformation mechanisms of multiple-axial forged (MAFed) pure Mg has been investigated. The as-MAFed Mg, with a coarsely recrystallized structure, exhibited a balanced strain-hardening behavior with strain, resulting in extraordinary mechanical properties with high ultimate stress (~200 MPa) and extensive true strain (~0.30). The observation on the microstructural evolution suggests that the balanced strain-hardening behavior is correlated with de-twinning behavior cooperated with pyramidal &lt, c + a&gt, dislocations at the plastic straining stage.