Grain refinement of AZ31 Mg alloy during cyclic extrusion compression （CEC） at 225-400 ℃ was investigated quantitatively by electron backscattering diffraction （EBSD）. Results show that an ultrafine grained microstructure of AZ31 alloy is obtained only after 3 passes of CEC at 225 ℃. The mean misorientation and the fraction of high angle grain boundaries （HAGBs） increase gradually by lowering extrusion temperature. Only a small fraction of {101^-2} twinning is observed by EBSD in AZ31 Mg alloys after 3 passes of CEC. Schmid factors calculation shows that the most active slip system is pyramidal slip {101^-1}〈1120〉and basal slip {0001}〈1120〉 at 225-350 ℃ and 400 ℃, respectively. Direct evidences at subgrain boundaries support the occurrence of continuous dynamic recrystallization （CDRX） mechanism in grain refinement of AZ31 Mg alloy processed by CEC.
Microstructure and mechanical properties of AZ31-0.5%Si(mass fraction) alloy processed by ECAP were investigated. Results show that Mg2Si phase formed during solidification can be broken up and be dispersed in matrix by ECAP. With the increase of ECAP passes, Mg2Si phase in microstructure tends to distribute uniformly. The mean grain size is about 4μm, and the mean size of Mg2Si is about 6 Jim. The elongation of AZ31-0.5%Si alloy is significantly increased after ECAP and then changes a little with increasing ECAP passes. The ultimate strength of as-extruded AZ31-0.5%Si alloy reaches 348.9 MPa, while its strength decreases after ECAP.
The anisotropic plastic deformation behavior of as-extruded ZK60 magnesium alloy at room tempera-ture (RT) was investigated by compressive and tensile testing in different directions, i.e. the loading axis oriented at 0°, 45° and 90° to the extrusion direction. The relationship between texture and plastic deformation behavior were examined. The results show that the extruded ZK60 alloy exhibits a strong ring fiber texture. The mechanical properties are strongly orientation dependent. In tension testing, the 0° specimen exhibited higher yield strength and lower elongation. In compression testing, however, ZK60 alloy exhibited almost the same yield strength in three directions. The anisotropic plastic defor-mation behavior is due to strong fiber texture and the lower symmetry of the hexagonal close packed (hcp) structure of ZK60 alloy. The correlation between texture and mechanical behaviour offers the possibility to improve the mechanical properties of magnesium alloy by optimization of the material production process.
Microstructure evolution of ZK60 magnesium alloy deformed at 623 K by cyclic extrusion compression (CEC) large deformation method was investigated. ZK60 alloy was deformed in the range of accumulated true strain of 0.8-17. The microstructure of evolution was investigated by optical microscope (OM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that microstructure is obviously refined, and homogenous equiaxed microstructure is achieved in the entire range of the examined deformations by subjected to CEC deformation. By increasing the accumulated strain to 17, the grain size decreases into sub-micron regime with about several hundred nanometers. The mechanism of grain refinement in ZK60 alloy by CEC can be attributed to continuous dynamic recovery and recrystallization.
Mg-xSi （x=0, 1.5, 3.3） alloys were fabricated and subjected to cyclic closed-die forging （CCDF）, a new severe plastic deformation process, at 450 ℃ for 1, 3, and 5 passes. With applying CCDF, tensile strength, elongation and hardness increase, while coarse Mg2Si particles break into smaller pieces and exhibit more uniform distribution. Mg-1.5%Si alloy exhibits a combination of improved strength and elongation after 5 passes of CCDF processing. The tensile strength is about 142 MPa and elongation is about 8%. The improvement in mechanical properties was further characterized by dry sliding wear testing. The results show that wear resistance improves with silicon content and CCDF process passes, particularly the first pass. The wear resistance increases by about 38% for Mg-3.3%Si after 5 passes of CCDF compared with pure Mg. The improvement of wear is related to microstructure refinement and homogenization based on the Archard equation and friction effect.
The microstructure and crystallographic texture characteristics of an extruded ZK60 Mg alloy subjected to cyclic extrusion and compression(CEC) up to 8 passes at 503 K were investigated.The local crystallographic texture,grain size and distribution,and grain boundary character distributions were analyzed using high-resolution electron backscatter diffraction(EBSD).The results indicate that the microstructure is refined significantly by the CEC processing and the distributions of grain size tend to be more uniform with increasing CEC pass number.The fraction of low angle grain boundaries(LAGBs) decreases after CEC deformation,and a high fraction of high angle grain boundaries(HAGBs) is revealed after 8 passes of CEC.Moreover,the initial fiber texture becomes random during CEC processing and develops a new texture.
The high strain rate superplastic deformation properties and characteristics of a rolled AZ91 magnesium alloy at temperatures ranging from 623 to 698 K（0.67Tm-0.76Tm） and high strain rates ranging from 10^-3 to 1 s^-1 were investigated.The rolled AZ91 magnesium alloy possesses excellent superplasticity with the maximum elongation of 455% at 623 K and a strain rate of 10-3 s-1,and its strain rate sensitivity m is high up to 0.64.The dominant deformation mechanism responsible for the high strain rate superplasticity is still grain boundary sliding（GBS）,and the dislocation creep mechanism is considered as the main accommodation mechanism.
The microstructure and mechanical properties of AZ31 Mg alloy processed by high ratio extrusion (HRE) were investigated. General extrusion with extrusion ratio of 7 and high ratio extrusion with extrusion ratio 100 were contrastively conducted at 250,300 and 350℃. The results show that HRE process may be applied successfully to AZ31 Mg alloy at temperatures of 250, 300 and 350℃and this leads to obvious grain refinement during HRE process. The strength of HRE process is improved obviously compared with that of general extrusion. The grain refining mechanism of HRE process was also discussed. The current results imply that the simple high ratio extrusion method might be a feasible and effective processing means for refining the microstructure and improving the mechanical properties of AZ31 Mg alloy.
