Developing high-entropy alloy coatings on different engineering alloys with electro-spark deposition

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High-entropy alloys (HEAs) are becoming a new class of advanced engineering materials and are gaining significant attention both in academia and industry due to their promising good mechanical strength at high temperature and cryogenic state, good ductility, and corrosion or wear resistance, etc. They are considered as good structural materials or as promising candidate for the application of surface modification of alloys where low corrosion and wear resistance are needed.The proposed research and development project between the University of Waterloo and Huys Industries aims at exploring the use of Electro-Spark Deposition (ESD) for developing HEA coatings on typical engineering alloys, including Al alloys, steel, and superalloys. The use of ESD is expected to lead to a smaller heat affected zone than that of laser cladding processes and thus should be less detrimental to the microstructure of substrate and deposited HEA materials. This project builds upon Huys Industries' patented ESD technology and aims to broaden the applicability of their technology to pioneer the developing of new materials for the industrial sector. Specifically, this project will investigate the weldability of HEA with similar and dissimilar materials and their metallurgical phenomena, such as welding defects, phase separation, chemical segregation, diffusion, nanopreciptiations, and aims to use that knowledge to control the microstructure of HEA upon melting and resolidfication for practical applications. The implementation of this collaborative project will accelerate the application of HEAs moving from the laboratory to industrial adoption in Canada, which will place Canadian businesses and Canada's workforce at the forefront of technology development in the manufacturing, automotive and aerospace industries.