Accelerated Design for High-Entropy Alloys Based on Machine Learning and Multiobjective Optimization

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) with high hardness and high ductility can be considered as candidates for wear-resistant applications. However, designing novel HEAs with multiple desired properties using traditional alloy design methods remains challenging due to the enormous composition space. In this work, we proposed a machine-learning-based framework to design HEAs with high Vickers hardness (H) and high compressive fracture strain (D). Initially, we constructed data sets containing 172,467 data with 161 features for D and H, respectively. Four-step feature selection was performed, with the selection of 12 and 8 features for the D and H prediction models based on the optimal algorithms of the support vector machine (SVR) and light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM), respectively. The R2 of the well-trained models reached 0.76 and 0.90 for the 10-fold cross validation. Nondominated sorting genetic algorithm version II (NSGA-II) and virtual screening were employed to search for the optimal alloying compositions, and four recommended candidates were synthesized to validate our methods. Notably, the D of three candidates have shown significant improvements compared to the samples with similar H in the original data sets, with increases of 135.8, 282.4, and 194.1% respectively. Analyzing the candidates, we have recommended suitable atomic percentage ranges for elements such as Al (2–14.8 at %), Nb (4–25 at %), and Mo (3–9.9 at %) in order to design HEAs with high hardness and ductility.