Abstract
An equiatomic CoCrFeNiMn high-entropy alloy was processed by severe plastic deformation followed by post-deformation annealing over a range of temperatures and times leading to a wide range of grain sizes from ~ 0.05 to ~ 70 μm. The results demonstrate there is a sharp evolution in grain size and hardness after annealing above 800 °C due to coarsening facilitated by the dissolution of precipitates together with a high rate of diffusion at high temperatures. Grain growth behavior revealed an incremental low value grain growth exponent with increasing annealing temperature together with a high value activation energy for grain growth of ~ 440 kJ mol−1. A critical grain size of ~ 2 µm is proposed in which deformation-induced twinning is suppressed during plastic deformation. Nevertheless, slip and deformation-induced twinning are deformation mechanisms occurring in samples with grain sizes above this critical value. A model is presented for engineering the grain size by controlling the annealing parameters in the fine grain size range to benefit from the advantages of deformation-induced twining in the CoCrFeNiMn alloy.
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One of the authors was supported by the European Research Council under ERC Grant Agreement No. 267464-SPDMETALS (TGL). There was no other financial support.
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HS: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing—original draft. MSM: Methodology, Data curation, Writing—original draft. SAS: Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing—review & editing. CSL: Supervision, Resources, Writing—review & editing. TGL: Supervision, Resources, Project administration, Writing—review & editing.
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Shahmir, H., Mehranpour, M.S., Shams, S.A.A. et al. Grain Size Tailoring to Control Strain Hardening and Improve the Mechanical Properties of a CoCrFeNiMn High-Entropy Alloy. High Entropy Alloys & Materials 1, 72–83 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44210-022-00003-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44210-022-00003-7