Hardening behaviour in the irradiated high entropy alloy

Abstract Due to the development and utilization of nuclear energy, there is an urgent need for metal materials that have stable mechanical properties under irradiation conditions. In recent years, high-entropy alloys (HEAs) have been widely concerned, and their excellent properties under extreme conditions have been explored, so that they are considered as candidate materials under nuclear fusion and fission conditions. However, modeling the irradiated hardening behaviour in HEA is still lacking. Here, considering the effect of severe lattice distortion, the hardening behavior of the irradiated FeNiMnCr HEA is investigated by the crystal plasticity theory. The results show that the yield strength of the irradiated FeNiMnCr HEA obtained by hardening model agrees well with the experimental data at the irradiation doses of 0 dpa, 0.03 dpa and 0.3 dpa. In addition, the relationship between the elemental concentrations and mechanical properties in FeNiMnCr HEA is discussed, revealing that the variation of Cr concentration has the greatest effect on yield stress. The FeNiMnCr HEA presents the larger yield strength when the Cr elemental fraction is 0.65. The modeling and results could provide an effective theoretical way to tune the yield strength and alloying design in advanced HEAs for meeting irradiation properties.