Superplasticity of AZ31 magnesium alloy prepared by friction stir processing.pdf

Superplasticity of AZ31 magnesium alloy prepared by friction stir processing ZHANG Da-tong, XIONG Feng, ZHANG Wei-wen, QIU Cheng, ZHANG Wen School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China Received 28 July 2010; accepted 26 December 2010 Abstract: Microstructure and tensile behaviors of AZ31 magnesium alloy prepared by friction stir processing (FSP) were investigated. The results show that microstructure of the AZ31 hot-rolled plate with an average grain size of 92.0 m is refined to 11.4 m after FSP. The FSP AZ31 alloy exhibits excellent plasticity at elevated temperature, with an elongation to failure of 1050% at 723 K and a strain rate of 5×104 s1. The elongation of the FSP material is 268% at 723 K and 1×102 s1, indicating that high strain rate superplasticity could be achieved. On the other hand, the hot-rolled base material, which has a coarse grain structure, possesses no superplasticity under the experimental conditions. Key words: friction stir processing; AZ31 magnesium alloy; superplasticity; microstructure [10] reported a friction stir processed ultrafine-grained 1 Introduction Al-Mg-Sc alloy with a ductility of 620% at 300 C and 3×102 s1. As to magnesium alloys, FSP of AM60 [11], Magnesium alloys are expected to be widely used in AZ91 [12], AZ31 [13], Mg-Al-Ca [14] and Mg-RE aerospace and automobile industries due to their low alloys [15] was investigated b