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

高熵合金(HEAs)正成为一种新型的先进工程材料，因其具有良好的高温和低温机械强度、良好的延展性和耐腐蚀性和耐磨性等优点而受到学术界和工业界的广泛关注，被认为是一种良好的结构材料或在对耐腐蚀性和耐磨性要求较低的合金表面改性方面具有广阔的应用前景。滑铁卢大学与惠斯工业公司拟开展的研究项目旨在探索利用电火花沉积(ESD)在铝合金、钢和高温合金等典型工程合金上制备HEA涂层。与激光熔覆工艺相比，ESD的使用有望产生更小的热影响区，因此对衬底和沉积的HEA材料的微观结构的损害应该更小。该项目建立在惠斯工业专利ESD技术的基础上，旨在扩大其技术的适用性，为工业部门开发新材料开辟先河。具体地说，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控制HEA在熔化和再结晶时的微观结构，以用于实际应用。这一合作项目的实施将加快家用电器在加拿大从实验室应用到工业应用的步伐，这将使加拿大企业和加拿大劳动力处于制造业、汽车和航空航天行业技术开发的前沿。

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.