Thermal microstructural stability of AZ31 magnesium after severe plastic deformation

• ECAP and FSP both decreased the thermal microstructural stability of TRC AZ31 Mg.
• An annealing parameter was used to find the thermal limits of superplastic forming.
• The recrystallization mechanism was affected by the FSP conditions.
• Humphreys' model accurately described the annealing behavior of the SPD materials.

Both equal channel angular pressing and friction stir processing have the ability to refine the grain size of twin roll cast AZ31 magnesium and potentially improve its superplastic properties. This work used isochronal and isothermal heat treatments to investigate the microstructural stability of twin roll cast, equal channel angular pressed and friction stir processed AZ31 magnesium. For both heat treatment conditions, it was found that the twin roll casted and equal channel angular pressed materials were more stable than the friction stir processed material. Calculations of the grain growth kinetics showed that severe plastic deformation processing decreased the activation energy for grain boundary motion with the equal channel angular pressed material having the greatest Q value of the severely plastically deformed materials and that increasing the tool travel speed of the friction stir processed material improved microstructural stability. The Hollomon–Jaffe parameter was found to be an accurate means of identifying the annealing conditions that will result in substantial grain growth and loss of potential superplastic properties in the severely plastically deformed materials. In addition, Humphreys' model of cellular microstructural stability accurately predicted the relative microstructural stability of the severely plastically deformed materials and with some modification, closely predicted the maximum grain size ratio achieved by the severely plastically deformed materials.