A preliminary study has been performed to understand the effect of pressureless sintering on the surface morphology of the AlFeCoNi alloy by the addition of the Si element. This study aims to determine the possibility of achieving the densification of high entropy alloy using the conventional sintering technique. The results indicate that the HEAs have a single-phase BCC structure even with the addition of Si. The thermodynamic simulation (CALPHAD) was used to predict the phase formation. The variation of crystallite sizes and lattice strains caused by sintering temperatures was also discussed. In addition, densification mechanisms occurring with the different sintering temperatures have been discussed. The formation of porosity was observed, however, the density of HEAs improved with increasing sintering temperature. Ultimately, it was suggested that the present HEAs required higher sintering temperatures and a longer time to achieve high density.
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) [Grant Number 2021R1A2C1005478]. The authors would like to thank Dr. Vinod Kumar, Associate Professor at IIT Indore, and Mr. Sandeep Jain, Ph.D. scholar at IIT Indore also acknowledged for their help in thermodynamic simulation.
