Grain refinement and strength enhancement in Mg wrought alloys: A review

Abstract

Low absolute strength becomes one major obstacle for the wider applications of low/no rare-earth (RE) containing Mg alloys. This review firstly demonstrates the importance of grain refinement in improving strength of Mg alloys by comprehensively comparing with other strategy, e.g., precipitation strengthening. Dynamic recrystallization (DRX) plays a crucial role in refining grain size of Mg wrought alloys. Therefore, secondly, the DRX models, grain nucleation mechanisms and the related grain refinement abilities in Mg alloys are summarized, including phase boundary, twin boundary and general boundary induced recrystallization. Thirdly, the newly developed low-RE containing Mg alloy, e.g., Mg-Ce, Mg-Nd and Mg-Sm based alloys, and the RE-free Mg alloys, e.g., Mg-Al, Mg-Zn, Mg-Sn and Mg-Ca based alloy, are reviewed, with the focus on enhancing the mechanical properties mainly via the grain refinement strategy. At the last section, the perspectives and outstanding issues concerning high-performance Mg wrought alloys are also proposed. This review is meant to promote the deep understanding on the critical role of grain refinement in Mg alloys and provide reference for the development of other high strength and low-cost Mg alloys which are fabricated by the conventional extrusion/rolling processing.

Keywords

• Magnesium alloy
• Grain refinement
• Strengthening
• Dynamic recrystallization
• Microstructure control