Effect of titanium on the structural, mechanical and surface properties of CoCrFeMnNiTix high entropy alloy fabricated by selective laser melting

In this study, the effect of titanium (Ti) on the microstructure, mechanical properties, wear resistance and corrosion behavior of CoCrFeMnNi high-entropy alloy (HEA) was examined. The selective laser melting (SLM) method was used to produce HEAs without Ti addition (HEA-1) and with Ti additions of 3 and 5 wt% (HEA-2 and HEA-3, respectively). While the HEA-1 sample exhibited a single-phase face-centered cubic (FCC) structure, the HEA-2 and HEA-3 samples exhibited intermetallic phase structures (Sigma and Laves) along with FCC. The addition of Ti and the presence of intermetallic phases in the HEA-2 sample revealed an improvement in mechanical properties without reducing the ductility value of the structure. However, in parallel with the increasing Ti ratio, the formation of more brittle intermetallic phases in the microstructure of the HEA-3 alloy caused a significant increase in strength but a decrease in ductility. Microstructural examinations revealed that all alloys had a cellular/dendritic structure and the relative densities of the samples were above 99%. While the ultimate tensile stress (UTS) of the HEA-1 sample was 548 MPa and the UTS of the HEA-3 alloy was 832.1 MPa, elongation values were obtained as 48% and 2%, respectively. HEA-2 sample exhibited more ideal results with an elongation value of approximately 22% and UTS values of 760.8 MPa. It was observed that the addition of Ti significantly increased the wear resistance in sliding conditions due to the increase in the hardness of the alloy. The highest hardness and lowest wear rate were obtained with HEA-3 coded samples. The HEA-1 sample exhibited the best corrosion rate, with higher corrosion potential (Ecorr) and lower corrosion current density (Icorr) values. The highest corrosion rate was observed in the HEA-3 sample.