Enhanced Wear Behaviour of Spark Plasma Sintered AlCoCrFeNiTi High-Entropy Alloy Composites

High hardness and good wear resistance have been revealed for the high-entropy alloy (HEA) system AlCoCrFeNiTi, confirming the potential for surface protection applications. Detailed studies to investigate the microstructure and phase formation have been carried out using different production routes. Powder metallurgical technologies allow for much higher flexibility in the customisation of materials compared to casting processes. Particularly, spark plasma sintering (SPS) enables the fast processing of the feedstock, the suppression of grain coarsening and the production of samples with a low porosity. Furthermore, solid lubricants can be incorporated for the improvement of wear resistance and the reduction of the coefficient of friction (COF). This study focuses on the production of AlCoCrFeNiTi composites comprising solid lubricants. Bulk materials with a MoS₂ content of up to 15 wt % were produced. The wear resistance and COF were investigated in detail under sliding wear conditions in ball-on-disk tests at room temperature and elevated temperature. At least 10 wt % of MoS₂ was required to improve the wear behaviour in both test conditions. Furthermore, the effects of the production route and the content of solid lubricant on microstructure formation and phase composition were investigated. Two major body-centred cubic (bcc) phases were detected in accordance with the feedstock. The formation of additional phases indicated the decomposition of MoS₂.