Cold gas spraying was used to make a coating from an equiatomic CrFeNiMn high-entropy alloy. This four-component alloy was chosen because it is Co-free, thus allowing application in nuclear industries as a possible replacement of currently used stainless steel coatings. The feedstock material was gas atomized powder with a particle size distribution from 20 to 45 µm. A number of parameters were tested, such as the powder feed rate and gas feed pressure, in order to obtain as dense a coating as possible with nitrogen as the process gas. Spraying was performed using a gas preheating temperature of 1000 °C, gas feed pressure ranging from 50 to 60 bar, and two powder feeding rates. The coating thicknesses ranging from 230 to 490 µm and porosities ranging from 3% to 10% were obtained depending on the powder feed rate and gas feed pressure. The hardness of the cross-section of the coating was usually lower than that of the surface. The highest coating hardness obtained was above 300 HV_0.3 for both the surface and the cross-section. The as-atomized powder consisted of a face-centered cubic (FCC) phase with a minute amount of body-centered cubic (BCC) phase, which was no longer detectable in the coatings. The microstructure of the coating was highly stressed due to the high degree of deformation occurring in cold gas spraying. The deformation leads to strain hardening and induces a pronounced texture in the coating. The {111} planes tend to align along the coating surface, with deformation and texturing concentrating mainly on particle boundaries. A high-entropy alloy (HEA) coating was successfully sprayed for the first time using nitrogen as a process gas. The coating has the potential to replace stainless steel coatings in nuclear industry applications.

A cobalt-free equiatomic CrFeNiMn multicomponent alloy was fabricated from gas-atomized powder using laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF), also known as selective laser melting (SLM). The as-built specimens had a single face-centered cubic (FCC) structure, relative density of 98%, and hardness up to 248 HV_0.5 for both the scanning speeds applied. In this work, we report the hierarchical microstructural features observed in the as-built specimens. These are comprised of melt pools, grains, cell structures including dendritic cells, elongated cells, equiaxed cells (~500 nm), and sub-cells (150–300 nm). The cell and sub-cell walls are composed of a notably high density of dislocations. In addition, segregation of Mn and Ni was detected at the cell walls, but only occasionally at the sub-cell walls. SLM exhibits the capability to produce FCC-structured equiatomic CrFeNiMn multicomponent alloy with the refined and hierarchical microstructure.

This study investigates the effects of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) on the hydrogen uptake of the face-centered cubic (FCC) equiatomic CrFeNiMn multicomponent alloy after cathodic hydrogen charging (HC). Hydrogen desorption was evaluated using thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS), and microstructural changes after the TDS test were examined. Results reveal that the amount of hydrogen absorbed by LPBF CrFeNiMn alloy was significantly higher than that in pulsed electric current sintered (PECS) CrFeNiMn alloy or in conventional 316L austenitic stainless steel. The observations are ascribed to the differences in the amount of hydrogen absorbed by the multicomponent lattice, dislocation densities, width of segregation range at cell walls created by the rapid cooling in LBPF, and vacancies remaining after cooling to room temperature. A hydrogen-charged LBPF transmission electron microscope (TEM) specimen was also characterized. Stacking faults and cracks along the (111)-planes of austenite were observed. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of the surface of the TDS-tested samples also indicated hydrogen-induced cracks and hydrogen-induced submicron pits at the grain boundary inclusions.

A non-equiatomic AlCoCr_0.75Cu_0.5FeNi alloy has been identified as a potential high strength alloy, whose microstructure and consequently properties can be widely varied. In this research, the phase structure, hardness, and magnetic properties of AlCoCr_0.75Cu_0.5FeNi alloy fabricated by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) are investigated. The results demonstrate that laser power, scanning speed, and volumetric energy density (VED) contribute to different aspects in the formation of microstructure thus introducing alterations in the properties. Despite the different input parameters studied, all the as-built specimens exhibit the body-centered cubic (BCC) phase structure, with the homogeneous elemental distribution at the micron scale. A microhardness of up to 604.6 ± 6.8 HV0.05 is achieved owing to the rapidly solidified microstructure. Soft magnetic behavior is determined in all as-printed samples. The saturation magnetization (M_s) is dependent on the degree of spinodal decomposition, i.e., the higher degree of decomposition into A2 and B2 structure results in a larger M_s. The results introduce the possibility to control the degree of spinodal decomposition and thus the degree of magnetization by altering the input parameters of the LPBF process. The disclosed application potentiality of LPBF could benefit the development of new functional materials.