Effect of Room Temperature Ultrasonic Vibration Compression on the Microstructure Evolution and Mechanical Properties of AZ91 Alloy

doi:10.1007/s40195-024-01692-2

Abstract

Abstract:

To investigate the potential of direct ultrasonic vibration on improving the performance of magnesium alloys, this study first employed the ultrasonic vibration compression (UVC) on the solid solution treated AZ91 alloy, and explored its microstructure evolution and mechanical properties under UVC. Within only two seconds, the UVC alloys showed large deformation strains of 34.8-54.4%, and sudden increase of sample temperature to 243 °C. Microstructure characterizations proved that UVC promoted the formation of abundant shear bands, fine grains, and the bimodal distribution of Mg₁₇Al₁₂ precipitates consisting of submicron particles located within the shear bands and nano-sized ones within the matrix. Owing to the unique microstructure, the micro-hardness (and nano-hardness) value of UVC alloy was increased by 37.7% (35%) when compared with the solution-treated alloy. Moreover, the nano-modulus of the developed AZ91 alloy was also significantly increased to 62 GPa by statistical nanoindentation tests, which could be ascribed to increased Mg₁₇Al₁₂ precipitates and decreased c/a value to some extent. In general, this work provides a new insight into the design and preparation of high-performance magnesium alloys by UVC at room temperature.

Key words: AZ91 alloys, Ultrasonic vibration compression, Precipitation, Shear bands, Mechanical properties

Ziyue Xu, Huan Liu, Luyao Li, Chao Sun, Xi Tan, Baishan Chen, Qiangsheng Dong, Yuna Wu, Jinghua Jiang, Jiang Ma. Effect of Room Temperature Ultrasonic Vibration Compression on the Microstructure Evolution and Mechanical Properties of AZ91 Alloy[J]. Acta Metallurgica Sinica (English Letters), 2024, 37(7): 1135-1146.

Figures/Tables 10

Fig. 1 a Schematic diagram of UVC; b stress-strain curve in CC process and stress-time curve in UVC-L process; c macroscope of SS, CC and UVC samples

Fig. 2 a Temperature-time curve in UVC-L process and b the corresponding infrared temperature images during processing

Fig. 3 Mechanical properties of AZ91 alloy after different processing: a micro-hardness distributions, b the nano-modulus, nano-hardness and micro-hardness histogram of the samples

Fig. 4 Comparison of a elastic modulus and b specific stiffness for this alloy with Mg-based materials [28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37]

Fig. 5 SEM observations of UVC alloys: a, b, c UVC-H alloy, d, e, f UVC-L alloy

Fig. 6 TEM observations of UVC alloys: a-c bright-field image of shear bands, d-f bright-field image of Mg17Al12 precipitates, g, h bright-field image of Mg grains, i SAED pattern from Mg17Al12 phase in (d) map

Fig. 7 EBSD analyses of inverse pole figures (IPF): a SS-AZ91 alloy, b CC alloy, c UVC-L alloy, d UVC-H alloy, e pole figures of SS, CC and UVC-L alloy; f variation of average grain size and maximum texture intensity

Fig. 8 Microstructure observations of CC sample: a OM image; TEM images of b shear bands, c α-Mg grains and d Mg17Al12 precipitates

Table 1 Comparisons of micro-hardness of recently developed Mg alloys

Alloys (wt%)	Process	Hardness (HV)	Ref.
AZ91	UVC	97.2	This work
AZ91	Heat treatment	81.1	[52]
AZ91	Aging-44 h	83.5	[53]
AZ91	Cyclic Contraction-Expansion Extrusion (CCEE)	73	[54]
AZ91	Extruded	95.4	[55]
AZ31	SPD	78.4	[56]
AZ31	FSW	72	[57]
ZK60	MDF	67.3	[58]
ZK60-1La-2Y	Extruded	77	[59]
ZK61	Extruded	94.3	[60]
AZ80	Aging-30 h	88	[61]
Mg-5Gd-3Y-1Zn-0.5Zr alloy	Uniaxial compression	103	[62]
Mg-6Gd-3Y-1.5Ag alloy	SSE-1P	91.3	[63]

Fig. 9 a XRD data showing the shift of α-Mg peaks of AZ91 alloy; b trends in the value of a and c lattice parameters

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