Experimental and simulated data about microstructure and phase composition of a NiCrCoTiV high-entropy alloy prepared by vacuum hot-pressing sintering

In this work, a NiCrCoTiV HEA was fabricated by vacuum hot-pressing sintering after planetary ball milling. The microstructure and phase composition were studied by experiment and thermodynamic simulation. The results show that some discrepancies are found between the calculated and experimental results, and the main difference is the existence of TiO phase. Experimental results indicate that, the alloy consists of a BCC phase, an FCC phase, an eta (η) phase, a TiO phase and Ni2V3 intermetallic compounds, and BCC phase is enriched with Cr and V elements, FCC phase is enriched with Co, Ti and Ni and heavily depleted by V and Cr, and eta phase is enriched with Ni, Ti, and Co elements. The thermodynamic simulation results suggest that the solidification simulation predicts the composition of BCC phase, FCC phase and eta (η) phase very well, but can't predict the presence of Ni2V3 intermetallic compounds. Without regard to the composition of each phase, the results of the simulated equilibrium phase diagram seem to be much closer to the experimental results.