Development of low-temperature impact-damage tolerant high entropy alloy with sequential multi-deformation mechanisms

Metals often lose their ductility at cryogenic temperatures owing to the decreased mobility of dislocations. TRansformation-induced plasticity (TRIP), a toughening mechanism at room temperature, can increase damage susceptibility at low temperatures, as the resultant martensite phases can become more brittle than the parent phases. Herein, we develop a high-entropy alloy (HEA) with an improved low-temperature impact-damage tolerance through a sequential plasticity mechanism. We design a trip-assisted dual-phase HEA (TADP HEA) and investigate the effects of Al addition on its mechanical properties upon deformation at different temperatures, depending on stacking fault energy (SFE). Our analysis shows that a senary (Cr20Mn6Fe34Co34Ni6)98Al2 HEA exhibits superior mechanical properties, including a 641 MPa yield strength (σy), 964 MPa ultimate tensile strength (σUTS), and 40% uniform elongation (ɛUTS) at ambient temperature (25 °C), and a 1 GPa σy, 1.5 GPa σUTS, and 36% ɛUTS at −100 °C. Notably, despite the presence of hexagonal-close packed martensite, the HEA exhibits a higher Charpy impact energy (406 J) than Cantor HEA (344 J) at −100 °C. We attribute this improvement to the sequential deformation mechanism of mechanical twinning and martensitic transformation in the HEA at −100 °C, which results in sustainable steady strain-hardening during deformation. We suggest that optimizing the sequential deformation mechanism by manipulating SFE in multi-component alloys can be an effective route for improving the damage tolerance of metals at cryogenic temperatures.