Microstructural and mechanical properties of NiCoCrAlSi high entropy alloy fabricated by mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering

Abstract

In this study, the microstructural and mechanical properties of NiCoCrAlSi high entropy alloy (HEA) fabricated by mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering (SPS) method was studied. Initially, the starting powders with the composition of Ni28Co26Cr26Al10Si10 were subjected to mechanical milling at different times of 5, 10, 15, 20 and 40 h. The 40 h milled powder was then sintered by SPS method at 1170 °C. The microstructural characterization, phase analysis and mechanical properties of this sample were evaluated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Rietveld analysis and tensile test. XRD results showed that by increasing the milling time the size of crystallites reduced and lattice strain increased. In addition, formation of FCC1 (F1) phase at final stages of mechanical alloying was observed. However, the peak of some of the remaining elements was still observed after 40 h of milling. After sintering, formation of FCC2 (F2) phase alongside F1 was observed. According to quantitative analysis, F1 phase with fraction of 89.3 wt% and F2 phase with fraction of 10.7 wt% is formed after SPS process. For this sample, a tensile strength of 1365 ± 141 MPa was obtained.