Abstract
Precipitation strengthening has been the basis of physical metallurgy since more than 100 years owing to its excellent strengthening effects. This approach generally employs coherent and nano-sized precipitates, as incoherent precipitates energetically become coarse due to their incompatibility with matrix and provide a negligible strengthening effect or even cause brittleness. Here we propose a shear band-driven dispersion of nano-sized and semicoherent precipitates, which show significant strengthening effects. We add aluminum to a model CoNiV medium-entropy alloy with a face-centered cubic structure to form the L21 Heusler phase with an ordered body-centered cubic structure, as predicted by ab initio calculations. Micro-shear bands act as heterogeneous nucleation sites and generate finely dispersed intragranular precipitates with a semicoherent interface, which leads to a remarkable strength-ductility balance. This work suggests that the structurally dissimilar precipitates, which are generally avoided in conventional alloys, can be a useful design concept in developing high-strength ductile structural materials.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 4703 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Nature Communications |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2021 |