Deformation behavior of a wrought Mg-Zn-RE alloy at the elevated temperatures

This study has been investigated the deformation behavior of a hot-extruded Mg-Zn-RE (RE: rare earth elements) alloy containing Mg₁₂(RE) particles at the elevated temperatures. The particles are intrinsically produced by breaking the eutectic structure of the alloy during the hot-extrusion process. The grain size of the extruded Mg-Zn-RE alloy developed via dynamic recrystallization is around 10 μm. Under the heat treatment at 200°C up to 48 hr, no change has been observed on the microstructure and mechanical properties due to the pinning effect of the thermally stable particles. Under the tensile test condition in the initial strain-rate range of 1 × 10^-3s^-1 and the temperature range up to 200°C, the alloy shows yield strength of 270 MPa and elongation to failure around 9% at room temperature and yield strength of 135 MPa at 200°. Furthermore, although the alloy contains large amount of the second phase particles around 15%, it shows excellent hot-workability possibly due to the presence of the thermally stable interface between the particles and the matrix.