High entropy alloys (HEAs) with a face-centered cubic (fcc) structure are considered as promising structural materials, in particular due to their impressive ductility and toughness at cryogenic temperature; at the same time strength of these HEAs is often quite low. An addition of interstitial elements like carbon substantially increases the strength of the fcc HEAs at room temperature, however the effect of C on cryogenic properties has not been properly studied. Therefore in this work we examined cryogenic tensile behavior of the fcc high entropy alloys with different carbon content (0e2 at.%). The alloys had non-equiatomic proportions of principal elements, i.e. Co 1 Cr 0.25 Fe 1 Mn 1 Ni 1 . The lower Cr concentration in comparison with the equiatomic alloy led to the higher solubility of carbon confirmed by both Ther-moCalc calculations and experimental results; only in the alloy with 2 at.% C a small (<1%) fraction of Crrich M 7 C 3 carbides was found in the as-cast condition. The microstructure of the alloys was not significantly affected by the carbon content and generally consisted of coarse (250e300 mm) fcc phase grains with dendritic segregations. In turn, the carbon content influenced on mechanical behavior substantially: the strength of the alloys progressively increased with the carbon content along with some reduction in ductility. Solid solution strengthening by carbon at 77 K was much stronger than that at room temperature: 67 MPa/at% and 178 MPa/at%, respectively. The increase in solid solution strengthening agreed well with an anticipated increase in lattice friction at lower temperatures. Plastic deformation was associated with dislocations slip both at 293 K and 77 K; a decrease in temperature and an increase in the carbon concentration increased the inclination to planar slip. The obtained results offer new approaches to increase the cryogenic properties of fcc HEAs.

Specimens of a CoCrFeMnNi high entropy alloy with different content of nitrogen (0.5e2.0 at.%) were prepared by induction melting. Microstructure and tensile mechanical behavior of the alloys in the ascast condition were analyzed. The alloys with a low amount of N (0.5e1.0 at.%) had a single fcc phase coarse-grained microstructure. An increase in the content of N to 2.0 at.% resulted in the precipitation of a small amount (~1%) of Cr-rich M 2 N nitride particles. The yield strength of the alloys increased in proportion to the percentage of nitrogen by 117 MPa/at% N at 293 K or by 316 MPa/at% N at 77 K. The observed increase in strength was attributed to solid solution hardening. Ductility of the alloy with 0.5 or 1.0 at.% of N increased with a decrease in the testing temperature while ductility of the alloy with 2 at.% dropped from 67% at 293 K to 8% at 77 K. The plastic deformation of the alloys at both 77 K or 293 K was mostly associated with planar dislocation slip. No signs of mechanical twinning were found even at 77 K. Thermo-Calc software was used to produce a quasi-binary CoCrFeMnNieN phase diagram for comparing the experimental and calculated results. The effect of N on strengthening and deformation mechanisms at different temperatures was discussed.

No abstract

No abstract

The effect of the carbon content (0-2 at.%) on the structure and mechanical properties at room and cryogenic temperatures of CoCrFeNiMn-based high entropy alloys with reduced Cr concentration was studied. The as-cast alloys were cold rolled to a thickness reduction of 80% and annealed at 800°C for 1 hour. As a result, a fully recrystallized microstructure with a grain size of 6.4 μm was produced in the carbon-free alloy. The recrystallized grain size was much smaller (1.5 μm in the alloy with 2.0 at.% of C) due to the pinning effect of the precipitated M23C6 carbides. The yield strength of the alloys increased with an increase in the carbon concentration from 313 MPa to 636 MPa, while the elongation to fracture slightly decreased from 56% to 43%, respectively, in the alloys with 0 and 2 at.% of C. A decrease in the test temperature to 77K resulted in a significant increase in both the strength and ductility of the alloys. The alloys had high values of impact toughness of 140 J/cm2 and 85 J/cm2, respectively, in the alloys with 0 and 2 at.% of C. A decrease in the testing temperature did not have a noticeable effect on the impact toughness.