Isothermal and non-isothermal sintering characteristics of mechanically alloyed nonequiatomic Fe₂CoCrMnNi high-entropy alloy powder

ABSTRACT

Mechanically alloyed high-entropy alloy (HEA) has taken considerable attention due to its ease of fabrication. Recent trend progresses towards the development of non-equiatomic HEAs to enhance the material properties compared to equiatomic alloys. Sintering behaviour of widely investigated equiatomic FeCoCrMnNi HEA has been reported. However, no report exists on the sintering kinetics of non-equiatomic HEA, when the concentration of a particular element is increased in the alloy powder. The present work attempts to study the isothermal and non-isothermal sintering behaviour of mechanically alloyed non-equiatomic Fe₂CoCrMnNi HEA over a temperature range of 950–1100°C in an argon atmosphere. Activation energies for sintering and diffusivity parameters of Fe₂CoCrMnNi HEA were calculated from dilatometric measurements through the sintering models. The result indicates the grain boundary diffusion as a dominating sintering mechanism for this alloy powder.

KEYWORDS:

• High-entropy alloy
• mechanical alloying
• sintering
• volume diffusion
• grain boundary diffusion

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank DST-SERB (EMR/2016/001066), New Delhi, India, for providing financial support and SRM Institute of Science and Technology for providing high-resolution scanning electron microscope (HRSEM) and experimental facilities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Disna Sahane is a PhD research scholar in the Department of Physics and Nanotechnology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu.

Sheela Singh is an Associate Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, SRM University-A.P.

Mahesh Jadhav is a PhD research scholar in the Department of Physics and Nanotechnology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu.

Bharat B Panigrahi is a Professor in Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Science and Engineering Research Board: [Grant Number EMR/2016/001066].