High temperature deformation and recrystallization behavior of magnesium bicrystals with 90°<1010>and 90°<1120>tilt grain boundaries

The deformation mechanisms and dynamic recrystallization(DRX)behavior of specifically grown bicrystals with a symmetric 90°<1010>and 90°<1120>tilt grain boundary,respectively,were investigated under deformation in plane strain compression at 200℃and 400℃.The microstructures were analyzed by panoramic optical microscopy and large-area electron backscatter diffraction(EBSD)orientation mapping.The analysis employed a meticulous approach utilizing hundreds of individual,small EBSD maps with a small step size that were stitched together to provide comprehensive access to orientation and misorientation data on a macroscopic scale.Basal slip primarily governed the early stages of deformation at the two temperatures,and the resulting shear induced lattice rotation around the transverse direction(TD)of the sample.The existence of the grain boundary gave rise to dislocation pile-up in its vicinity,leading to much larger TD-lattice rotations within the boundary region compared to the bulk.With increasing temperature,the deformation was generally more uniform towards the bulk due to enhanced dislocation mobility and more uniform stress distribution.Dynamic recrystallization at 200℃was initiated in{1011}-compression twins at strains of 40%and higher.At 400℃,DRX consumed the entire grain boundary region and gradually replaced the deformed microstructure with progressing deformation.The recrystallized grains displayed characteristic orientations,such that their c-axes were perpendicular to the TD and additionally scattered between 0°and 60°from the loading axis.These recrystallized grains displayed mutual rotations of up to 30°around the c-axes of the initial grains,forming a discernible basal fiber texture component,prominently visible in the{1120}pole figure.It is noteworthy that the deformation and DRX behaviors of the two analyzed bicrystals exhibited marginal variations in response to strain and deformation temperature.

Effects of Ca and Nd addition on plastic instability in extruded Mg-Mn alloy deformed under various conditions

Plastic instability, called Portevin-Le-Chatelier(PLC) effect, manifests itself as an unstable plastic flow during tensile tests of structural materials. This phenomenon has a strong influence on diverse properties, leading to unexpected vulnerabilities in the service environment.Among various magnesium-based alloys, PLC phenomenon is most prominently observed in the Mg-Mn-Nd alloy under elevated temperature and low strain rate conditions. An important aim of the study is to clarify and compare the significance of the RE and Ca addition, which are known to cause a formation of a largely weakened non-basal type texture, in the occurrence of plastic instability. Due to the PLC phenomenon, there is a risk of weakening texture and formability improvement by the addition of RE and Ca elements in Mg alloys. Based on the understanding of the role of Nd to the PLC phenomenon in Mg-Mn alloy identified in previous studies, the PLC characteristics according to alloying elements and deformation conditions were compared and analyzed. To identify the micromechanical mechanisms of the PLC phenomenon, varies in the microstructure and mechanical properties during deformation of Mg-Mn binary and Ca or Nd-containing Mg-Mn-based ternary alloys in various conditions were systemically analyzed. The addition of Ca did not show a marked PLC effect due to the formation of low number density Mn-Ca and Ca-Ca solute clusters and an unbalanced Mn:Ca ratio. In contrast, the addition of Nd leads to the formation of a higher number density of Nd-Nd and Mn-Nd solute clusters than that of Ca-Ca and Mn-Ca solute clusters of the Mg-Mn-Ca alloy, resulting in a stable solute-dislocation interaction atmosphere under specific ranges of deformation temperature and strain rate. The deformation in the regime of PLC phenomenon, results in a decrease in ductility and an increase in strength, despite deformation at elevated temperatures with maintaining the weakened texture.

Solute drag-controlled grain growth in magnesium investigated by quasi in-situ orientation mapping and level-set simulations

Critical properties of metallic materials,such as the yield stress,corrosion resistance and ductility depend on the microstructure and its grain size and size distribution.Solute atoms that favorably segregate to grain boundaries produce a pinning atmosphere that exerts a drag pressure on the boundary motion,which strongly affects the grain growth behavior during annealing.In the current work,the characteristics of grain growth in an annealed Mg-1 wt.%Mn-1 wt.%Nd magnesium alloy were investigated by advanced experimental and modeling techniques.Systematic quasi in-situ orientation mappings with a scanning electron microscope were performed to track the evolution of local and global microstructural characteristics as a function of annealing time.Solute segregation at targeted grain boundaries was measured using three-dimensional atom probe tomography.Level-set computer simulations were carried with different setups of driving forces to explore their contribution to the microstructure development with and without solute drag.The results showed that the favorable growth advantage for some grains leading to a transient stage of abnormal grain growth is controlled by several drivers with varying importance at different stages of annealing.For longer annealing times,residual dislocation density gradients between large and smaller grains are no longer important,which leads to microstructure stability due to predominant solute drag.Local fluctuations in residual dislocation energy and solute concentration near grain boundaries cause different boundary segments to migrate at different rates,which affects the average growth rate of large grains and their evolved shape.

Deformation behaviour of magnesium bicrystals with symmetrical 90°<1120>tilt grain boundaries analysed by large area EBSD mapping

Grain boundaries play a significant role in the deformation of polycrystals.Their response to deformation is however not completely understood,particularly with respect to how they accommodate lattice rotation of adjoining crystallites by changing their structure and geometry.The current study thus investigates the deformation behaviour of Mg bicrystals with 90°<1120>symmetric tilt boundary strained in plane-strain compression up to different final strains.Due to the initial soft orientation of the two crystals,activation of basal slip in each crystal gave rise to lattice rotation around the transverse direction towards the compression direction of the channel-die.Hundreds of single EBSD maps with a small step size were obtained from the GB region and stitched together to produce large panoramic maps of a macroscopic scale.Although very time-consuming,this technique has proven useful in clarifying the origin of the non-uniform deformation zones in the vicinity of the grain boundary and explains the mechanisms,by which the grain boundary was able to cope with the imposed strain before fracture.Interestingly,several variants of extension twins were observed as an additional deformation mechanism despite having negative Schmid factors.Systematic investigation of their resulting combined shear components with respect to the sample coordinate system revealed an alignment along the longitudinal direction of the channel-die,therefore justifying their nucleation.

The role of recrystallization and grain growth in optimizing the sheet texture of magnesium alloys with calcium addition during annealing

The contribution of recrystallization and grain growth to the texture evolution in AZ31 alloy and a modified version AZ31+0.5 wt.%Ca was investigated utilizing a multi-step annealing process.The results showed that the addition of Ca triggered a considerable texture modification by increasing the texture spread and decreasing the overall texture intensity.This effect was found to be temperature dependent.When the annealing temperature remained lower than 450℃,a weak double peak texture with large basal pole tilt towards the RD was formed.This is correlated to microstructure observations of a large number of Ca-containing nano-sized particles that seemed to suppress grain growth below 450℃,which stabilized the weak recrystallization texture.This favorable texture was lost upon annealing at higher temperatures.In AZ31,recrystallization nuclei were found to preserve the orientation of their deformed parents,which offered limited potential to optimize the texture via annealing treatments.Grain growth of recrystallized grains resulted in a distinct sheet texture transition from a double-peak to a single-peak basal texture.Aspects of grain boundary energy and grain topology are discussed to explain the growth advantage of the sharp basal component over other orientations.

Plastic instability and texture modification in extruded Mg-Mn-Nd alloy

Even though Mg alloys containing Mn and rare earth elements lead to higher ductility and lower yield asymmetry due to the weak texture after extrusion, plastic instability, commonly known as the Portevin–Le Chatelier(PLC) effect, causes unexpected fragility in the service environment. In the present study, the PLC phenomenon and texture development during the deformation of Mg-Mn and Mg-Mn-Nd extruded alloys were investigated under various temperatures and strain rates. The addition of Nd causes not only texture weakening but also severe PLC phenomenon. The PLC phenomenon was significantly affected by the temperatures and the strain rates, which causes a difference in mechanical properties and development of texture. In the conditions of high temperature and low strain rate, the strength increased while the elongation decreased significantly, and obvious PLC phenomenon with severe serration and negative strain rate sensitivity. The initial texture was maintained even after deformation only under severe PLC conditions, and this is due to the restriction of basal slip and suppression of lattice rotation in PLC conditions. The series of results indicate that the PLC phenomenon causes a reduction of formability even at high temperature.

Normal and abnormal grain growth in magnesium:Experimental observations and simulations

Commercial purity as-cast magnesium was hot rolled and subsequently annealed at different temperatures in order to investigate its grain growth behavior and link it to the texture evolution.Annealing at an intermediate temperature of 220℃ gave rise to abnormal grain growth with a few grains reaching a grain diameter 10 times larger than the mean.Increasing the annealing temperature to 350℃ yielded normal grain growth.Both types of grain growth revealed a strengthening of the(0001) <11-20> texture component.It is hypothesized that a dislocation density gradient after recrystallization grants(0001) <11-20>grains a size advantage during early stages of growth.The type of growth will be,however,determined by the mobility of the present grain boundaries and triple junction drag,which are strongly dependent on the annealing temperature.The above hypothesis of the interplay between these parameters was explored through curvature-and re sidual dislocation-density-gradient-driven grain growth simulations using a formerly developed level-set approach.The simulation outcome suggests that application of such a modeling approach in microstructure studies of magnesium can provide valuable new insights into the problem of grain growth and associated texture evolutio n.