The effect of heterogeneous deformation on the hot deformation of WE54 magnesium alloy

•Determination of the parameters of the Garofalo equation.•Determination of the heterogeneous deformation of the compressed samples.•Determination of the optimum rolling temperature by efficiency and stability maps.•Influence of the heterogeneous deformation on the mechanical parameters.

The high temperature forming behavior of WE54 magnesium alloy is studied by means of compression and tension tests. Metallographic investigation was performed to evaluate the heterogeneous deformation of the compression samples at high temperature. Dynamic recrystallization was found to be related to the amount of deformation in the various regions of the compression sample. The compression data allowed determination of the Garofalo equation describing the hot deformation behavior. The parameters n and Q, stress exponent and activation energy, of this equation were 4.4 and 237 kJ/mol respectively. This equation was used to predict the formability behavior for the hot rolling process and also to determine the maximum forming efficiency and stability of the alloy. The optimum rolling temperature was found to be 520 °C.