The influence of cooling rate on the structure and mechanical properties of Al4CoCrCuFeNi multicomponent alloy

Abstract

The present study focused on examining the composition, structure, and mechanical properties of an Al4CoCrCuFeNi multicomponent high-entropy alloy. Two states of the alloy, namely as-cast and melt-quenched, were investigated. The composition of the alloy was determined based on established criteria found in literature, which consider factors such as entropy, enthalpy of mixing, valence electron concentration, and atomic size difference of the components. To synthesize the alloy films, a splat-quenching technique was employed, where the films were rapidly cooled from the molten state. The estimated cooling rate of the films was approximately 10⁶ K/s, calculated based on the film thickness. X-ray diffraction analysis was conducted on both the as-cast and melt-quenched Al4CoCrCuFeNi alloy samples, revealing that they exhibited an ordered B2 phase in their structure. The microhardness measurements
were carried out to evaluate the mechanical properties of the alloy. The as-cast alloy displayed a microhardness of 6500 MPa, while the melt-quenched film exhibited a significantly higher microhardness, reaching 9400 MPa.