Quasi-superplasticity in the AlCoNiV medium entropy alloy with Heusler L21 precipitates

The high-temperature tensile deformation behaviors of the recrystallization annealed Al7(CoNiV)93 medium entropy alloy with a duplex hierarchical microstructure of face-centered cubic (fcc) and ordered body-centered cubic L21 Heusler-type grains were investigated. The alloy showed a remarkably high tensile strength of ∼1.1 GPa and good ductility of ∼17% at 923 K due to a good strain hardening capacity of 60 MPa. At 1073 K, the highest fracture elongation of ∼270% was displayed at a strain rate of 10−3 s−1. The strain rate sensitivity was estimated to be about 0.32, which is typical of alloys that show this quasi-superplastic elongation. The activation energy was also estimated to be ∼421 kJ/mol. With deformation at 1073 K at a strain rate of 10−3 s−1, the duplex microstructure transformed into a refined triplex fcc-L21-σ equiaxed microstructure. The development of the triplex equiaxed microstructure resulted from dynamic recrystallization (DRX), which assisted in the maximum superplastic-like elongation of 270%. The inability of the alloy to access true superplasticity was attributed to immense cavitation due to the high amount of the brittle σ phase, which served as de-cohesion sites for the early fracture of the sample. However, the observed quasi-superplasticity could still be useful in superplastic forming operations.