Microstructure and mechanical properties of AZ31 alloy ring processed by hot forging

Abstract

AZ31 alloy ring was successfully processed by hot forging. The effects of effective strain and temperature distributions on the microstructure and the relationship between microstructure and mechanical properties of the ring were investigated. The effective strain distribution at the centre region is relatively uniform, while the temperature in or near the flash region is higher than the other regions. A refined but inhomogeneous microstructure is obtained in the ring. It shows that the larger the accumulated strain and the lower the temperature are, the finer and more homogeneous the microstructure will be achieved. The mechanical responses of the ring from different tensile directions differ greatly. The radial direction sample shows the lowest yield strength and the largest fracture elongation.

Keywords:

• Hot forging
• Ring forming
• AZ31 alloy
• Finite element simulation
• Microstructure
• Mechanical properties

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 512712073 and No. 51471038) and sharing fund of Chongqing University's large-scale equipment.