3D finite element analysis and experimental correlations of laser synthesized AlCrNiTiNb high entropy alloy coating

Abstract

A 3D Finite Element Analysis (FEA) model of laser cladding process of AlCrNiTiNb high entropy alloy (HEA) coatings on Titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V) substrate has been developed taking into account heat transfer and free surface movement. The use of Ti6Al4V is highly evident in applications such as aerospace, automobile and marine environments due to their outstanding specific strength to weight ratio. Although they have high strength useful for fabrication of engineering components and movable parts in a mechanical system, Ti6Al4V are restricted to non-friction applications as a result of their low hardness. In this work, AlCrNiTiNb HEA hard-coating with equi-atomic ratio was synthesized on Ti6Al4V alloy substrate by laser cladding technique to mitigate the limitations. Prior to experimental method, a 3D computational model was developed to simulate the physical phenomena based on heat transfers involved during laser surface cladding (LSC) of HEA coating on Ti‐6Al‐4V alloy by a laser-assisted direct energy deposition technique. COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3a was used to create a model using heat transfer in solids module incorporating temperature distribution during the layer-wise build-up of 3 layers. The experimental validation showed that the microstructural analysis by scanning electron microscope (SEM) resulted in coating having dendritic and interdendritic structure which resulted in good metallurgical bonding. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis displayed that AlCrNiTiNb alloy coating is composed of ordered and disordered solid solution phases (BCC and FCC) with no intermetallic compounds formed. Energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) confirmed the presence of elements used. The microhardness of AlCrNiTiNb HEA coating reached maximum value around 892 HV which is more than of the substrate. The microhardness increased significantly due to the combination of BCC and FCC solid solution phases.