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Guidelines in predicting phase formation of high-entropy alloys

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Abstract

With multiple elements mixed at equal or near-equal molar ratios, the emerging, high-entropy alloys (HEAs), also named multi-principal elements alloys (MEAs), have posed tremendous challenges to materials scientists and physicists, e.g., how to predict high-entropy phase formation and design alloys. In this paper, we propose some guidelines in predicting phase formation, using thermodynamic and topological parameters of the constituent elements. This guideline together with the existing ones will pave the way toward the composition design of MEAs and HEAs, as well as property optimization based on the composition–structure–property relationship.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC, No. 50971019, 51010001, and 51001009), 111 Project (B07003), and Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University. PKL very much appreciates the financial support from the US National Science Foundation (DMR-0909037, CMMI-0900271, and CMMI-1100080), the Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) 00119262, and the DOE, Office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (DE-FE-0008855 and DE-FE-0011194) with C. Huber, C. V. Cooper, D. Finotello, A. Ardell, E. Taleff, V. Cedro, R. O. Jensen,L. Tan, andS. Lesicaascontractmonitors. YQC is supported by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. MCG acknowledges the support of the Innovative Processing and Technologies Program of the National Energy Technology Laboratory’ s (NETL) Strategic Center for Coal under the RES contract DE-FE-0004000.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Y. Zhang & Z. P. Lu

  2. Institute of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    S. G. Ma

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37996, China

    P. K. Liaw & Z. Tang

  4. Chemical and Engineering Materials Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37830, China

    Y. Q. Cheng

  5. National Energy Technology Laboratory, Albany, Oregon, 97321, USA

    M. C. Gao

  6. URS Corporation, P.O. Box 1959, Albany, Oregon, 97321, USA

    M. C. Gao

Authors
  1. Y. Zhang
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  2. Z. P. Lu
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  3. S. G. Ma
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  4. P. K. Liaw
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  5. Z. Tang
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  6. Y. Q. Cheng
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  7. M. C. Gao
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Y. Zhang.

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Zhang, Y., Lu, Z.P., Ma, S.G. et al. Guidelines in predicting phase formation of high-entropy alloys. MRS Communications 4, 57–62 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2014.11

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