Tribological Behavior of High Entropy Alloy Coatings: A Review

As engineering equipment is applied in a harsh environment with a heavy load, cyclic stress, and a wide range of temperatures, the reliability of the equipment becomes a challenge, especially when wear contact is involved. Hence, the design and exploitation of an advanced alloy surface may hold the key to control and minimize friction and wear in the transmission system for safety-critical applications. High entropy alloys (HEAs) or multi-component alloys have been proved to have outstanding mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, and high-temperature oxidation resistance with potential use as wear resistance and friction reduction coatings. In this paper, the properties and development status of HEAs coating systems for tribological applications were reviewed to gain a better understanding of their advantages and limitations obtained by different preparation methods. Specifically, focus was paid to magnetron sputtering, laser cladding, and thermal spraying since these three deposition methods were more widely used in wear-resistant and friction-reducing coatings. Building upon this, the correlation between composition, mechanical properties, and friction as well as wear characteristics of these coatings are summarized. Finally, the key problems to be solved to move the field forward and the future trend of tribology application for HEA coatings are outlined.