Design, Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Multi-Principal Element Alloys
A special issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 94
Special Issue Editors
Interests: medium-/high-entropy alloys; deformation mechanisms; microstructure and mechanical properties
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Medium-/high-entropy alloys (M/HEAs) have emerged as one of the most rapidly developing metallic materials, particularly in the last decade. Compared to traditional dilute solid solution alloys, M/HEAs exhibit unique physical and chemical structural characteristics, offering a wide range of microstructural states and performance regulation. An increasing number of studies have confirmed that M/HEAs surpass the performance limits of conventional metallic materials, especially concerning their mechanical properties.
At the atomic scale and extending to mesoscopic phase structures, M/HEAs display a series of distinctive characteristics, including lattice distortion, chemical short-range order, fluctuating Burgers vectors, stacking faults, complex stacking fault networks, deformed twins, phase transitions, and multi-level precipitation. To date, for any identified M/HEA, a clear and precise phase diagram to guide composition design remains elusive, preventing process optimization. Machine learning represents a relatively effective approach to compensate for the limitations of traditional trial-and-error methods in composition and process design. Furthermore, the rich phase structures, multi-level precipitation, and tunable microstructures of M/HEAs have become increasingly diverse and intriguing with the advent of additive manufacturing technology. More importantly, a deeper understanding of deformation mechanisms can provide valuable guidance for alloy design. However, to this day, the deformation mechanisms of M/HEAs in single-phase face-centered cubic and body-centered cubic structures have still not been studied in depth or sufficiently, especially under extreme conditions such as dynamic loading, fatigue loading, and high- and low-temperature deformation. These challenges require the joint efforts of all researchers in the field.
In this Special Issue, we welcome articles that focus on the composition design and process optimization of M/HEAs, particularly novel composition or microstructure features, advanced characterization, and related computational simulations, as well as innovative research on their excellent mechanical behavior and deformation mechanisms. We especially encourage research work on new performance and application explorations.
Dr. Tuanwei Zhang
Dr. Zezhou Li
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- medium-/high-entropy alloys
- composition design
- mechanical properties
- deformation mechanism
- advanced characterization
- processing technology
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