Strain-controlled low cycle fatigue properties of a rare-earth containing ME20 magnesium alloy

The present study was aimed to evaluate the strain-controlled cyclic deformation characteristics and low cycle fatigue (LCF) life of a low (~0.3 wt%) Ce-containing ME20-H112 magnesium alloy. The alloy contained equiaxed grains with ellipsoidal particles containing Mg and Ce (Mg12Ce), and exhibited a relatively weak basal texture. Unlike the high rare earth (RE)-containing magnesium alloy, the ME20M-H112 alloy exhibited asymmetrical hysteresis loops somewhat similar to the RE-free extruded Mg alloys due to the presence of twinning-detwinning activities during cyclic deformation. While cyclic stabilization was barely achieved even at the lower strain amplitudes, cyclic softening was the predominant characteristics at most strain amplitudes. The ME20M-H112 alloy showed basically an equivalent fatigue life to that of the RE-free extruded Mg alloys, which could be described by the Coffin-Manson law and Basquin's equation. Fatigue crack was observed to initiate from the near-surface imperfections, and in contrast to the typical fatigue striations, the present alloy showed some shallow dimples along with some fractions of quasi-cleavage features in the crack propagation area.