High-Throughput Design of Refractory High-Entropy Alloys: Critical Assessment of Empirical Criteria and Proposal of Novel Guidelines for Prediction of Solid Solution Stability

Refractory high-entropy alloys (RHEAs) are a new class of metallic alloys which have been extensively studied in the past decade due to their excellent high-temperature performances. However, the design of new lightweight and ductile RHEAs is a challenging task, since an extensive exploration of the immense compositional space of multicomponent systems is practically impossible. Aiming to reduce the experimental effort, several research groups have proposed different predictive criteria to design new high-performing HEAs. Nevertheless, the criteria proposed so far are often based on a limited amount of data and, generally, do not differentiate between refractory and nonrefractory HEAs. To overcome these limitations, herein, a comprehensive database of properties of 265 RHEAs reported in the open literature from 2010 to 2022 is developed. Such a database is used to assess the validity of predictive empirical criteria and new guidelines for the prediction of solid solution stability in RHEAs are proposed.