Strengthening mechanisms in high entropy alloys: A review

High entropy alloys (HEAs) is a new generation of alloys with multi-component systems and emerged as a po-tential candidate for the industrial applications due to their excellent mechanical properties at cryogenic, ambient and elevated temperatures. The chemistry changes through microstructural heterogeneities leads to a significant strength increment in HEAs as compare to the conventional solid solutions. However, the strength increment is often related to the ductility loss and vice-versa, which is known as strength-ductility trade-off. Therefore, the modifications in the conventional strengthening mechanisms are required to overcome this dilemma. The conventional strengthening mechanisms have been revisited and revised by the materials scientists to break these trade-offs through adjusting the stacking fault energy, twins formation and phase transformation in multicomponent systems. Herein, the different strengthening mechanisms including, solid solution strength-ening, grain boundary strengthening, precipitation strengthening and phase transformation strengthening are systematically reviewed with regard to overcome the strength-ductility trade-off in HEAs.

Automated summary

High entropy alloys (HEAs) have emerged as a potential candidate for industrial applications due to their excellent mechanical properties at various temperatures. However, the trade-off between strength and ductility in HEAs requires modifications in conventional strengthening mechanisms such as adjusting stacking fault energy and promoting twin formation and phase transformation.