Microstructural Design for Improving Ductility of An Initially Brittle Refractory High Entropy Alloy

V Soni; O N Senkov; B Gwalani; D B Miracle; R Banerjee

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-27144-3

Microstructural Design for Improving Ductility of An Initially Brittle Refractory High Entropy Alloy

Sci Rep. 2018 Jun 11;8(1):8816. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-27144-3.

Authors

V Soni^{1

2}, O N Senkov^{3

4}, B Gwalani^{1

2}, D B Miracle³, R Banerjee^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, Denton, 76207, Texas, USA.
² Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Processes Institute, University of North Texas, Denton, 76207, Texas, USA.
³ Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH-45433, USA.
⁴ UES Inc, 4401, Dayton-Xenia Road, Beavercreek, OH, USA.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, Denton, 76207, Texas, USA. Raj.Banerjee@unt.edu.
⁶ Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Processes Institute, University of North Texas, Denton, 76207, Texas, USA. Raj.Banerjee@unt.edu.

Abstract

Typically, refractory high-entropy alloys (RHEAs), comprising a two-phase ordered B2 + BCC microstructure, exhibit extraordinarily high yield strengths, but poor ductility at room temperature, limiting their engineering application. The poor ductility is attributed to the continuous matrix being the ordered B2 phase in these alloys. This paper presents a novel approach to microstructural engineering of RHEAs to form an "inverted" BCC + B2 microstructure with discrete B2 precipitates dispersed within a continuous BCC matrix, resulting in improved room temperature compressive ductility, while maintaining high yield strength at both room and elevated temperature.