Atomistic simulation of nanoindentation behavior of amorphous/crystalline dual-phase high entropy alloys

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) are a new type of multi-principal metal materials that exhibit excellent mechanical properties. However, the strength–ductility balance in the HEAs remains a challenge that needs to be addressed. The amorphous/crystalline (A/C) structure is a new design strategy to achieve high strength and excellent ductility of the HEAs. Here, the influences of amorphous layer spacing, indenter velocity, and indenter radius on the mechanical properties and microstructure evolution of the A/C dual-phase CoCrFeMnNi HEAs under nanoindentation were investigated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The results indicate that the plastic deformation mechanism of the monocrystalline HEAs is mainly dominated by the nucleation and slip of dislocations, while the plastic deformation mechanism of the dual-phase HEAs is mainly dominated by the interaction between dislocations and amorphous phases. The results show that the average indentation force of the dual-phase HEAs increases with the increase of the amorphous layer spacing. The amorphous layer in the HEAs can hinder the expansion of dislocations, limiting them to the crystalline matrix between the two amorphous layers. The results also indicate that Young's modulus of the HEAs increases with the increase of the indentation velocity and indentation radius. However, the hardness of HEAs is positively correlated with the indenter velocity, and negatively correlated with the indenter radius. It should be noted that the critical indentation depth and critical indentation force for the plastic deformation of the dual-phase HEAs decrease with the increase of indenter velocity, which is opposite to that of the single-phase crystalline HEAs.