Design and manufacture of novel wear-and-erosion resistant high-entropy alloys

用于矿产、石油和天然气行业的设备在运行过程中经常遭受严重的磨损和侵蚀退化，例如泵、阀门、锥、叶轮、破碎机和地面接触工具。这些产品的磨损或侵蚀引起的早期故障大大降低了这些机器的使用寿命，从而增加了产品和服务成本。多伦多大学的学术团队将与Weir Group Plc的技术人员合作，设计和制造新的金属材料，这些材料可以显著提高矿物、石油和天然气产品组件的耐磨损和抗侵蚀性能。本项目将重点研究一种新兴的合金系统——高熵合金（HEAs）。HEAs被粗略地定义为由五种或五种以上的金属元素以等摩尔或近等摩尔的比例组成的固溶合金，其中多个主元素表现出很强的固溶硬化效应，但也表现出优异的韧性。寻找具有最佳力学性能的新型HEAs将基于高通量组合方法。在小规模的HEAs预筛选之后，多伦多大学的团队将制造大规模的HEAs，用于在真实或近似的操作条件下进行测试。与典型的金属接触部件相比，新型HEAs有望降低磨损和侵蚀率。该项目为期一年，重点开展高等学校可行性研究，培养博士后1人、硕士研究生1人、孟研究生2人、本科生2人。科学目标是对HEAs的变形机理和设计规律有一个基本的认识。长期的技术目标是增加这些组件的使用寿命，并降低由于停机、组件维护和相关服务而导致的总体成本。这项合作研究将导致多伦多大学和Weir集团之间建立几个后续的主要研究项目。新的HEAs和相关技术将转移给合作组织，使加拿大的相关行业受益，并培训未来的加拿大研究人员和工程师。

Equipment used in mineral, oil and gas industries often suffer from severe wear and erosion degradation during operation, such as pumps, valves, cones, impeller, crushers, and ground engagement tools. The wear or erosion induced early failure of these products significantly reduce the service of life of these machines, and, consequently, increase the product and service cost. The academic team at the University of Toronto will collaborate with the Weir Group Plc technical staff to design and fabricate new metallic materials that can significantly improve the wear-and-erosion resistant properties for the components of the mineral, oil and gas products. This project will be focused on an emerging alloy system - high-entropy alloys (HEAs). HEAs are loosely defined as solid-solution alloys that are made of five or more metallic elements in equimolar or near-equimolar ratios, wherein multiple principal elements show a strong tendency of solid-solution hardening effects but also exhibit superior toughness. The search for new HEAs with optimal mechanical properties will be based on a high-throughput combinatorial method. After prescreening of the HEAs at small scales, the University of Toronto team will fabricate large-scale HEAs for testing in real or approximate operation conditions. The new HEAs are expected to exhibit reduced wear and erosion rates compared to typical metallic contact parts. The one-year project focuses on the feasibility studies of HEAs and training of one postdoctoral fellow, one MASc student, two MEng students, and two undergraduate students. The scientific objective is to give a fundamental understanding of deformation mechanisms and design rules of HEAs. The long-term technical goal is to increase the service life of these components and reduce the overall cost due to downtime, maintenance of components, and related service. This collaborative research will lead to the establishment of a few subsequent major research projects between the University of Toronto and the Weir Group. The new HEAs and related techniques will be transferred to the partner organizations, benefiting relevant industries in Canada and training future Canadian researchers and engineers.