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

高熵合金（High-entropy Alloys，HEAs）是一类新型的先进工程材料，由于其在高温和低温下具有良好的机械强度、良好的延展性和耐腐蚀、耐磨性，它们被认为是良好的结构材料或作为有希望的候选人，用于低腐蚀和低磨损的合金表面改性滑铁卢大学和Huys Industries之间的拟议研究和开发项目旨在探索电火花沉积（ESD）的用途，用于在典型的工程合金（包括Al合金、钢和超级合金）上开发HEA涂层。预计ESD的使用将导致比激光熔覆工艺更小的热影响区，因此对基材和沉积的HEA材料的微观结构的危害较小。该项目以Huys Industries的ESD专利技术为基础，旨在扩大其技术的适用性，为工业部门开发新材料。具体而言，该项目将研究HEA与相似和不同材料的可焊性及其冶金现象，如焊接缺陷，相分离，化学偏析，扩散，纳米沉淀，并旨在利用这些知识来控制HEA的微观结构在熔化和重新凝固后的实际应用。这一合作项目的实施将加速HEA在加拿大从实验室到工业应用的应用，这将使加拿大企业和加拿大劳动力处于制造业、汽车业和航空航天业技术开发的最前沿。

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.