A team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the Georgia Institute of Technology has 3D-printed a dual-phase, nanostructured, high-entropy alloy that exceeds the strength and ductility of other state-of-the-art additively manufactured materials. The alloy could lead to higher-performance components for applications in aerospace, medicine, energy, and transportation.

The research, led by Wen Chen, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UMass, and Ting Zhu, professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, was published in the August 2022 issue of the journal Nature.

During the past 15 years, high-entropy alloys (HEAs) have become popular in materials science. Comprising five or more elements in near-equal proportions, they can create a near-infinite number of combinations for alloy design. Traditional alloys, such as brass, carbon steel, stainless steel, and bronze, contain a primary element combined with one or more trace elements.

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