Designing Mg alloys with high ductility: Reducing the strength discrepancies between soft deformation modes and hard deformation modes

Two Mg alloys containing 0.03 at% and 0.18 at% Nd were designed to investigate the effects of solute concentration, and thermomechanical processing on the strengths of related deformation modes. Annealing treatments were conducted to stimulate grain coarsening for as-extruded alloys. In view of solute concentration effect, we conducted compressive tests and microstructure characterization to reveal and analyze the activities of the related deformation modes and their corresponding strengths. We find that the solute concentration of Nd does not affect the nucleation CRSS for {10-12} twinning. However, with the increase of Nd concentration, the nucleation CRSS for pyramidal -slip was greatly reduced. We also use a thermomechanical processing route, in terms of pre-compression, unloading, intermediate annealing, and re-compression, to explore the effect of solute segregation on strengths of related deformation modes. It is found that the CRSS for the migration of {10-12} twinning dislocation increased significantly after the intermediate annealing treatment for Mg-0.18Nd alloy. We conclude that when designing high ductility Mg alloys, from the perspective of reducing the strength discrepancies between soft deformation modes and hard deformation modes, important factors including the type of alloying element, solute concentration, and pre-deformation strain need to be taken into account.

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