High entropy alloy cladding on mild steel substrate using microwave energy at 2.45 GHz: An insight from multi-physics simulation study to experimental investigations

Microwave hybrid heating (MHH) has emerged as a novel technology for cladding high-entropy alloy (HEA) powders on metallic substrates. The existence of a multi-material system (Al, Co, Cr, Ni, and Ti powder) in HEA provides difficulties in microwave cladding. These problems are addressed in the current study by employing silicon carbide as a susceptor material for MHH to microwave-clad AlCoCrNiTi HEA on a mild steel substrate. A multi-physics model of the microwave cladding setup was constructed to investigate the cladding properties. The model was verified using experimental data, and simulation was used to examine the electric field, resistive losses, energy distributions, and temperature-time profile. The simulation results indicated that the electric field intensity, resistive losses, and energy distribution were at their maximum near the susceptor and the cladded surface. As a result, the HEA-cladded surface reached a temperature of 1030(degrees)C at the central plane. This is comparable to the experimental temperature of 1041(degrees)C in 41 min, which shows an error of <10 %. From the microstructural investigation, the HEA powder exhibited a flaky microstructure and a uniform distribution of all the constituents, resulting in a solid metallurgical link between the HEA powder and substrate. The surface hardness of mild steel components was enhanced intensely by three times with the inclusion of AlCoCrNiTi HEA cladding.