Tailoring strength-ductility of Al0.8CoCrFeNi/Al composites fabricated by deformation-driven metallurgy via incorporating high-energy ball milling pretreatment

High-energy ball milling (HEBM) was utilized as the pre-treatment procedure to tailor the mechanical properties of high entropy alloy (HEA) reinforced aluminum matrix composites fabricated by deformation-driven metallurgy. The evolution of the milled powders as well as the fabricated composites was investigated via prolonging the holding time during HEBM. HEBM pretreatment is proved to be effective in refining the incorporated reinforcements and introducing massive dislocations, which were conducive to the mechanical properties of the fabricated composites. With prolonging the holding time of HEBM, the average size of reinforcements in the fabricated composites decreased and the ratio of recrystallized grains increased. Besides, the yield strength as well as the ultimate tensile strength of the fabricated composites increased while the elongation decreased. When the holding time of HEBM reached 25 hours, the yield strength, ultimate tensile strength and elongation of the fabricated composites reached 282 MPa, 341 MPa and 12.4%, which proved that the pre-treatment of HEBM effectively improved the strengthening effect of HEAs reinforcements.