Significant improvement of mechanical properties of cold-spray-additive manufactured FeCoNiCrMn high-entropy alloy via post-annealing

In this work, equimolar FeCoNiCrMn high-entropy alloy (HEA) was fabricated by solid-state cold spray additive manufacturing (CSAM) technique and post-annealed. The microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of the deposits before and after annealing were systematically evaluated. The tensile test results revealed that the deposit annealed at 1000 °C for 2 h exhibited an excellent combination of tensile strength and ductility, with a doubled ultimate tensile strength of 455 MPa compared with the as-sprayed and significantly improved elongation (28%). The improved strength can be attributed to the healing of micropores and interparticle interfaces in the deposit due to the interface diffusion induced by high temperature. The recovery of ductility is the result of a significantly decreased dislocation density and enhanced metallurgical bonding at interfacial regions. For the first time, the current work demonstrated that the combination of CSAM and post-annealing strategy could achieve the strength-ductility synergy of HEA deposits. The results of in-situ analysis show that the mechanism of tensile deformation process includes particle separation, and it can be inferred that the preparation of dense sediments combined with post-treatment is the direction of further optimization.