Computational design of V-CoCrFeMnNi high-entropy alloys: An atomistic simulation study

In the high-entropy alloy (HEA) community, many researchers have been trying to improve the strength of the CoCrFeMnNi HEA by generating a transformation-induced-plasticity (TRIP) effect and/or maximizing the solid solution hardening effect. Adding vanadium (V) to the CoCrFeMnNi HEAs could be an effective way to improve strength, because vanadium stabilizes the body-centered cubic (bcc) phase and its atomic size is larger than Co, Cr, Fe, Mn, and Ni. To design high strength V-added HEAs, we investigated the effect of vanadium on the critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) by utilizing an atomistic simulation, proposing an empirical equation to estimate the relative effect of alloying elements on the CRSS. For this, we first developed the Co-Cr-Fe-Mn-Ni-V hexanary interatomic potential by newly developing the Cr-V, Fe-V, and Mn-V binary interatomic potentials. As a result, two novel V-added HEAs were designed and the designed HEAs show higher strength than the previously developed non-equiatomic CoCrFeMnNi HEAs, as predicted from the empirical equation.