Texture modification of magnesium alloys during electropulse treatment

ABSTRACT

Differential speed rolling (DSR) at room temperature has been carried out on two Mg–1Gd and Mg–1Zn–1Gd rare-earth-containing magnesium alloys with different thickness reductions. The cold-rolled samples were selected to investigate the microstructure and texture evolution during the electropulse treatment (EPT). Both grain refinement and texture modification have been achieved for the three cold-rolled samples, which were accompanied by nucleation and nuclei growth during EPT. The recrystallisation process could be attributed to enhanced climb activity of dislocations by EPT, which produces not only a thermal effect but also an athermal effect. Compared with Mg–1Gd, Mg–1Zn–1Gd shows a smaller recrystallisation rate, which should be related to the solute segregation and could be one of the reasons for the texture modification of the alloy.

This paper is part of a themed issue on Materials in External Fields.

KEYWORDS:

• Mg alloy
• rare earth
• microstructure
• texture modification
• electropulse treatment
• recrystallisation

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51404079), Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology (No. 2013B090600062, No. 2014B010105009, No. 2015A030313902), Guangzhou Science Technology and Innovation Commission (No. 201509010003) and Tianhe Science and Technology Industry and Information Bureau (No. 201406YG069).