Microstructure, Texture Evolution, and Mechanical Properties of MDFed GWZ Alloy Containing LPSO Phases on the Condition of High and Low Temperature Cycle Deformation

Abstract

The current work systematically investigated the microstructure, texture evolution, and mechanical properties of MDFed Mg-13Gd-4Y-2Zn-0.5Zr (wt%) alloy (GWZ) on the condition of high and low temperature cycle deformation. The high and low temperature cycle deformation was proposed on the basis of the conventional multi-directional forging (MDF) at decreasing temperature and annealing treatment. As a new method, it was aimed to timely uniform the microstructure and strengthen magnesium (Mg) matrix during the deformation process. A low accumulative strain of 3 after 1 pass resulted in a bimodal microstructure with undynamic recrystallized (unDRXed) regions and dynamic recrystallized (DRXed) grains, while a high accumulative strain of 12 after 4 passes lead to a homogeneous microstructure with fine DRXed grains. According to the experimental results, it indicated that the average grain size of 63 μm after homogenization treatment at 520 was refined remarkably to 5.20 μm after 4 passes at 420 °C through high and low temperature cycle deformation. The area fraction of DRXed grains was increased to 98.4%, which can be regarded as achieving complete DRX after 4 passes. The grain refinement was mainly caused by particle stimulation nucleation (PSN) and mechanism. As the MDF passes and accumulative strain increased, the basal texture was weakened and transformed from a strong basal texture to a random distribution gradually. Compared with conventional MDF at decreasing temperature, the mechanical properties were enhanced effectively. After 4 passes, the ultimate tensile strength (UTS), tensile yield strength (TYS), and failure elongation (FE) were 405 MPa, 305 MPa, and 13.1%, respectively.