The impact of precipitation on recrystallization in a severely plastically deformed CoCrFeMnNi multi–principal element alloy

The present study investigated the rate-controlling mechanism for recrystallization kinetics in a severely plastically deformed (SPD) multi–principal element alloy. For this purpose, an equiatomic Cantor alloy (CoCrFeMnNi) was subjected to equal channel angular processing (ECAP) at room temperature and annealed at 773–973 K. The major recovery process was found to be concurrent recrystallization with precipitation. The recrystallization kinetics, investigated in the frame of the Johnson–Mehl–Avrami (JMAK) theory, gives a retarded recrystallization with a high recrystallization temperature of above 0.54Tm and an anomalous low JMAK exponent value of 1.1–1.8. The measured apparent activation energy for recrystallization exhibited a steady increase over the duration, with initial values of 220.8 ± 7.5 kJ/mol rising to 313.9 ± 23.8 kJ/mol towards the end. The systematic analysis leads to the conclusion that the rate-controlling mechanism for recrystallization in ECAP processed MPEA is the grain boundary migration-determined grain growth instead of nucleation. During this process, the Zener pinning effect exerted by precipitates from the concurrent precipitation with recrystallization plays the dominant role.