Features of Solid-Solution Hardening and Temperature Dependence of the Critical Shear Stress in Binary and Multicomponent Alloys

The paper analyses the hardening of binary and multicomponent solid solutions (including high-entropy alloys (HEAs)); addresses the notion of a compositional–cluster structure of binary solid solutions with unlimited solubility to propose an equation describing the concentration dependence of the critical shear stress; presents findings from a comparative analysis of the temperature dependences for critical shear stress (yield stress) for a series of binary and multicomponent solid solutions and pure metals with b.c.c. and f.c.c. lattices; considers potential mechanisms, which lead to a ‘plateau’ on the temperature dependence of critical shear stress for binary and multicomponent solid solutions and for pure metals; discusses the specifics of athermal hardening of HEAs and proposes a relatively simple equation for assessing their athermal hardening; and addresses the capabilities of using the x-ray diffraction to determine the root-mean-square displacements of atoms from ideal positions at crystal-lattice sites and crystal-lattice microdistortions in multicomponent solid solutions.