Research Progress of Light-weight High-entropy Alloy

Traditional light-weight alloys based on one or two metal elements have many limitations in industrial application, such as low strength of aluminum alloy at room temperature, poor plasticity and corrosion resistance of magnesium alloy at room temperature and difficult processing. In 2004, YEH formally proposed the concept of high-entropy alloy for the first time. The concept of high-entropy alloy provides a new direction for the development of light-weight alloy. Different from traditional light-weight alloys, light-weight highentropy alloys have many principal elements and high mixing entropy, which tend to form simple solid solution phases. Moreover, lightweight high-entropy alloy shows four significant effects, namely, high entropy effect in thermodynamics, slow diffusion effect in dynamics, lattice distortion effect in structure and cocktail effect in performance. Unique crystal structure and characteristics make lightweight high-entropy alloys have incomparable advantages over traditional light-weight alloys, such as high strength, high hardness, excellent high temperature oxidation resistance and corrosion resistance. The research status of light-weight high-entropy alloys is summarized, and the component design, preparation methods, microstructure and alloy properties of light-weight high-entropy alloys are described. The existing problems of light-weight high-entropy alloys are analyzed, and the future development trend of light-weight highentropy alloys is prospected. © 2021, Editorial Office of CHINA SURFACE ENGINEERING. All right reserved.