Magnesium research in Canada:Highlights of the last two decades

The highlights of major Canadian research projects of last two decades that aimed at advancing applications of magnesium and its alloys,being at the heart of lightweighting and ecological sustainability, are outlined. The research at universities, government laboratories, and other dedicated institutions, funded primarily through federal programs, was accompanied by strong activities of the industrial sector involved in designing and building the machinery for magnesium processing and production of components from magnesium alloys. The overall research directions matched the global trends of overcoming the key challenges that prevent magnesium alloys to play the major role in large-scale applications. Among industrially oriented projects the processing technologies in liquid, semisolid and solid states such as casting, twin roll casting, injection molding, rolling, extrusion, forging, and joining techniques were frequently pursued. Although the fundamental research aimed at understanding of a variety of magnesium behaviors and structural peculiarities up to nano and atomic levels, its essence spread around the inherently poor formability and high reactivity at room and elevated temperatures, including the ignition/flammability concerns.In recent years, a shift in research interests was observed and novel directions emerged such as magnesium air batteries, biodegradable alloys, additive manufacturing, and magnesium-rich high entropy alloys. The volume of data gathered in this report may constitute a base for specifically oriented assessments, analyses, and drawing conclusions.

Progress in twin roll casting of magnesium alloys: A review

Twin roll casting was commercialized for a strip production from ferrous and non-ferrous alloys in the 1950 s;however,its application to magnesium has proven difficult and still creates major challenges.This report describes global efforts in expanding manufacturing capabilities of magnesium sheet through twin roll casting path,offering many benefits,including a reduction in number of processing steps and energy savings.In addition to hardware design,alloy transformation during processing,product microstructure and properties,examples of successful solutions along with present technology and knowledge limitations are discussed.A particular attention is paid to developments at Canmet MATERIALS,having the only in North America pilot scale twin roll casting facility,devoted to magnesium.Efforts are described that aim at design of new magnesium alloys,which could take advantage of unique processing conditions during twin roll casting and contribute to the overall progress in magnesium sheet manufacturing.

Effect of hot rolling on microstructure and properties of the ZEK100 alloy

Attempts to expand manufacturing capabilities of magnesium-based sheet materials are described.The as-cast ZEK100(Mg-1.2Zn-0.35Zr-0.17Nd,in wt%)magnesium alloy was subjected to hot rolling at temperatures from 350℃to 450℃using the laboratory 50 ton reversible mill with preheated rolls to manufacture the 1.5-1.7 mm thick sheet.The rolling temperature affected the sheet properties and an increase in the rolling temperature from 250 to 450℃caused reduction of tensile strength from 257 to 228 MPa ac-companied by a reduction in tensile yield stress from 237 to 185 MPa.At the same time,the alloy elongation increased from 17 to 21%.For the same rolling temperature range,the compressive strength reduced from 418 to 351 MPa.The post-rolling annealing at 450℃led to reduction of both tensile and compressive properties with the largest changes corresponding to the rolling temperature of 350°C.The correlation between the alloy grain size after rolling and the sheet properties was established where a reduction in grain size was accompanied by an increase of both the tensile/compressive strength and yield stress.Based on Hall-Petch relationship and an average grain size the correlation developed in this study may be used as the prediction model for properties of the hot rolled magnesium sheet.The results are discussed in terms of recent developments in magnesium sheet alloys and the vital role played in this process by rare earth elements.

Dependence of flow strength and deformation mechanisms in common wrought and die cast magnesium alloys on orientation,strain rate and temperature

The controlling plastic deformation mechanisms(i.e.slip or twinning)and the structural crash performance of Mg alloys are strongly influenced by loading mode,texture and microstructure.This paper summarizes the main results from an experimental program to assess these effects for commercial Mg alloy extrusions(AM30 and AZ31),sheet(AZ31),and high pressure die castings(HPDC,AM50 and AM60).Uniaxial tensile and compressive tests were performed over a wide range of strain rate and temperature(i.e.0.00075–2800 s^(−1) and 100℃ to−150℃)using conventional servo-hydraulic and high-strain-rate universal test machines and a split-Hopkinson-bar(SHB)apparatus.In primarily-slip-dominant deformation,the true stress–strain curves showed approximate power-law behavior,and the effects of strain rate and temperature on yield strength could be approximately described by constitutive equations linearly dependent on the rate parameter,Tln(5.3×10^(7)/ɛ˙)where T is test temperature in Kelvin andɛ˙is strain rate in s^(−1).In primarily-twin-dominant deformation,the effects of strain rate and temperature on yield and initial flow stress were negligible or small from quasi-static to 2800 s^(−1) owing to the athermal characteristics of mechanical twinning;the effects may become more pronounced with exhaustion of twinning and increasing proportion of slip.

Critical mechanical properties and FEA simulation for crashworthiness assessment of a coarse-grained cast AM50 alloy

A coarse-grained AM50 alloy was used as a model alloy for investigation of constitutive behaviour,Charpy toughness and effect of stress state on deformation and failure of cast Mg alloys.The results provide critical mechanical properties of a cast AM50 alloy for crashworthiness assessment and development of finite element simulation techniques.For cast Mg alloys,the effect of strain rate and temperature is larger on tensile strength than on compressive strength because twinning is more extensive in compression than in tension.The effect of strain rate on compressive strength is negligible because twinning activity of the cast Mg alloy is dominant.The load vs.deflection of Charpy specimens were measured for modelling,and the effect of loading rate and temperature on load of Charpy specimens is very small because part of the specimen is in compression.The equivalent strain to fracture of the cylindrical round notched tension specimen decreases with increasing stress triaxiality;though for the flat-grooved plane strain specimen,the equivalent fracture strain remains constant over the range of stress triaxiality investigated.Because the two different specimen geometries give rise to different Lode angle values,the test results show that the Lode angle parameter is an important parameter for deformation and fracture of Mg alloys.Finite element simulations of loading of the cylindrical notched-tension and Charpy specimens were carried out using a Lode-angle dependent von Mises model,and were found to provide a reasonable description of the load-displacement curves measured in the tests.For the flat-grooved plane strain specimens,the computations under-predicted the force-displacement response measured.

Effect of Surface Modification on Candidate Alloys for Canadian SCWR Fuel Cladding

The Canadian Generation-IV supercritical water reactor (SCWR) requires peak cladding surface temperature of 800℃ for a core outlet temperature of 625℃. Materials selection for high temperature fuel cladding is becoming one of the major challenging tasks. Austenitic stainless steels with excellent corrosion resistance are often susceptible to stress corrosion cracking upon SCW exposure. Low-Cr steels such as P91 exhibit good high-temperature mechanical properties, but the lack of sufficient Cr content makes this group of alloys corrode too fast. One possible solution is to use coatings or surface modification techniques to improve the surface resistance to corrosion. In this study, we investigated the effect of surface modification on commercial 316L stainless steel. Surface modification by mechanical deformation has marked improvement in corrosion resistance during SCW exposure. Possible mechanisms for such improvement are discussed.

Interfacial bonding mechanism in Al/coated steel dissimilar refill friction stir spot welds

Defect-free dissimilar Al/zinc coated steel and Al/AlSi coated steel welds were successfully fabricated by refill friction stir spot welding. However, Al alloy and uncoated steel could not be welded under the same welding condition. Al-Zn eutectic layer formed at the Al/zinc coated steel interface showed nonuniformity in thickness and nanoscale intermetallic(IMC) produced was discontinuous. The bonding formation between the Al-Zn layer and the surrounding materials was attributed to a liquid/solid reaction mechanism. Bonding formation at Al alloy and AlSi coated steel interface was attributed to a solid/solid reaction mechanism, as the joining process did not involve with melting of base metals or AlSi coating materials. Kissing bond formed at the weld boundary acted as a crack initiation and propagation site,and the present study showed that weld strength of Al 5754/AlSi coated steel was greatly influenced by properties of original IMC layer.

Recent, development in low-constraint fracture toughness testing for structural integrity assessment of pipelines

Fracture toughness measurement is an integral part of structural integrity assessment of pipelines. Traditionally, a single-edge-notched bend （SE（B）） specimen with a deep crack is recommended in many existing pipeline structural integrity assessment procedures. Such a test provides high constraint and therefore conservative fracture toughness results. However, for girth welds in service, defects are usually subjected to primarily tensile loading where the constraint is usually much lower than in the three-point bend case. Moreover, there is increasing use of strain-based design of pipelines that allows applied strains above yield. Low-constraint toughness tests represent more realistic loading conditions for girth weld defects, and the corresponding increased toughness can minimize unnecessary conservatism in assessments. In this review, we present recent developments in low-constraint fracture toughness testing, specifically using single-edge- notched tension specimens, SENT or SE（T）. We focus our review on the test procedure development and automation, round-robin test results and some common concerns such as the effect of crack tip, crack size monitoring techniques, and testing at low temperatures. Examples are also given of the integration of fracture toughness data from SE（T） tests into structural integrity assessment.