Ultrahigh-temperature melt printing of multi-principal element alloys
Xizheng Wang, Yunhao Zhao, Gang Chen, Xinpeng Zhao, Chuan Liu, Soumya Sridar, Luis Fernando Ladinos Pizano, Shuke Li, Alexandra H. Brozena, Miao Guo, Hanlei Zhang, Yuankang Wang, Wei Xiong, Liangbing Hu
Abstract
Multi-principal element alloys (MPEA) demonstrate superior synergetic properties compared to single-element predominated traditional alloys. However, the rapid melting and uniform mixing of multi-elements for the fabrication of MPEA structural materials by metallic 3D printing is challenging as it is difficult to achieve both a high temperature and uniform temperature distribution in a sufficient heating source simultaneously. Herein, we report an ultrahigh-temperature melt printing method that can achieve rapid multi-elemental melting and uniform mixing for MPEA fabrication. In a typical fabrication process, multi-elemental metal powders are loaded into a high-temperature column zone that can be heated up to 3000 K via Joule heating, followed by melting on the order of milliseconds and mixing into homogenous alloys, which we attribute to the sufficiently uniform high-temperature heating zone. As proof-of-concept, we successfully fabricated single-phase bulk NiFeCrCo MPEA with uniform grain size. This ultrahigh-temperature rapid melt printing process provides excellent potential toward MPEA 3D printing.