Effects of Extrusion–Shear Process Conditions on the Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of AZ31 Magnesium Alloy

Abstract

In this paper, the effects of extrusion–shear (ES) on the microstructures and mechanical properties of AZ31 magnesium alloy has been studied, which has been achieved by conducting a lot of experiments and tests, including ES process, direct extrusion with different billet temperatures, microstructure analysis, hardness test, tensile & compression tests. The results show that the ES-processed rods has higher strengths (yield strength and tensile strength) than the direct extrusion ones with the same billet temperature, which contributed to their lower averaged grain size obtained from microstructure analysis according to Hall–Petch relation. Besides, the hardness of ES-processed AZ31 magnesium alloy decreases with the increasing of billet temperature. By comparing the two processes, it can be seen that the ES process could refine the microstructure and improve the mechanical properties of magnesium alloy.

Keywords

• magnesium alloy
• extrusion–shear
• billet temperature
• microstructure
• mechanical properties