Effects of Annealing on the Microstructure and Properties of 6FeNiCoCrAlTiSi High-Entropy Alloy Coating Prepared by Laser Cladding

The content of each constituent element in the newly developed high-entropy alloys is always restricted in equimolar or near-equimolar ratios to avoid the formation of complex brittle phases during the solidification process. In this article, a high-entropy alloy coating of 6FeNiCoCrAlTiSi has been prepared by laser cladding and subsequently annealed at 500, 750, 1000, and 1150 °C for 5 h. Surprisingly, the coating has a simple BCC solid solution phase with high microhardness, good resistance to softening, and high electrical resistivity properties. After annealing <750 °C, the coating shows high thermal stability, the electrical resistivity decreases slightly and the microhardness almost remains unchanged. After annealing above 750 °C, the microhardness of the coating slowly decreases with the decomposition of the supersaturated BCC solid solution.