Microstructural evolution of Mg-7Al-2Sn Mg alloy during multi-directional impact forging

Multi-directional impact forging (MDIF) was applied to a Mg-7Al-2Sn (wt.%) Mg alloy to investigate its effect on the microstructural evolution. MDIF process exhibited high grain refinement efficiency. After MDIF 200 passes, the grain size drastically decreased to 20 µm from the initial coarse grains of ~500 µm due to dynamic recrystallization (DRX). Meanwhile, original grain boundaries remained during MDIF and large numbers of fine spherical β-Mg17Al12 particles dynamically precipitated along the original grain boundaries with high Al concentration, acting as effective pinning obstacles for the suppression of DRXed grain growth. Besides, micro-cracks nucleated during MDIF and propagated along the interface between the remained globular or cubic Al-Mn particles and Mg matrix.