Manufacturing High Entropy Alloys: Pathway to Industrial Competitiveness

Abstract

High entropy alloys (HEAs) provide a transformative opportunity to design materials that are custom tailored to the distinct needs of a given application, thereby shifting the paradigm from “apply the material you have” to “engineer the material you need.” HEAs will enable high-performance manufactured goods that are competitive in the international marketplace through extraordinary material properties and unique property combinations. HEAs deliver new choices to manufacturers to create alternatives to materials that are rare, hazardous, expensive, or subject to international restrictions or conflict. The potential benefits of HEAs span diverse fields and applications, and show promise to not only accelerate economic growth and domestic competitive advantage, but also address pressing societal challenges. These include solid state cooling, liquefied natural gas handling, nuclear degradation- resistant materials, corrosion-resistant heat exchangers, and efficiency gains from high temperature performance that advance national energy goals; high-performance aerospace materials and ultra- hardness ballistics that support national security; and strong, corrosion-resistant medical devices and advances in magnetic resonance imaging that are essential to national health priorities. Research advances are setting the stage to realize each of these vital areas. However, research advances made to-date to produce lab-scale prototypes do not lend themselves to manufacturing at scale. For Americans to fully benefit from HEAs, the emerging technologies must be translated into products manufactured at scale in the United States. However, manufacturers and HEA experts who are working to bridge this gap are encountering cross-cutting barriers in manufacturing processes, testing, data, and access to the necessary resources. Through strategic public- and private- sector research and investment, these barriers can be overcome. The United States has invested in both HEA research and advanced materials resources, such as material sample creation at the Ames Laboratory Materials Preparation Center, material characterization at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Neutron User Facilities, and modeling and analysis through the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Material Genome Initiative. A vast array of research and expertise has been fostered at federal laboratories and universities, yielding promising alloys, manufacturing processes, and analysis methods.