Compressive creep behavior of Mg–Sn–La alloys

The compressive creep behaviors of as-cast Mg–5Sn, Mg–5Sn–2La, Mg–6.5Sn–2La and Mg–8.5Sn–2La alloys are investigated in this paper. The compressive creep resistance of Mg–xSn–2La (x = 5 wt.%; 6.5 and 8.5 wt.%) alloy is much better than that of as-cast Mg–5Sn alloy at the applied stresses from 25 to 35 MPa and the temperature of 473 K, which is mainly due to the feather-shaped, rod-like and massive rare earth phases formed in Mg–Sn–La alloys. The calculated stress exponent n is 4.2, 5.6, 6.2, and 5.7, respectively for the as-cast Mg–5Sn, Mg–5Sn–2La, Mg–6.5Sn–2La and Mg–8.5Sn–2La alloys, which indicate that the dislocation creep is the rate controlling mechanism of these alloys.