Microstructure and mechanical properties of Mg–8Li–xAl–0.5Ca alloys

ABSTRACT

The effect of the Al content on the microstructure and mechanical behaviour of Mg–8Li–xAl–0.5Ca alloys is investigated. The experimental results show that an as-cast Mg–8Li–0.5Ca alloy is mainly composed of α-Mg, β-Li and granular Mg₂Ca phases. With the addition of Al, the amount of α-Mg phase first increases and then decreases. In addition, the intermetallic compounds also obviously change. The microstructure of the test alloys is refined due to dynamic recrystallisation that occurs during extrusion. The mechanical properties of extruded alloys are much more desirable than the properties of as-cast alloys. The as-extruded Mg–8Li–6Al–0.5Ca alloy exhibits good comprehensive mechanical properties with an ultimate tensile strength of 251.2 MPa, a yield strength of 220.6 MPa and an elongation of 23.5%.

KEYWORDS:

• Mg–Li–Ca alloys
• extrusion
• microstructure
• mechanical properties

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Y. Yang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0128-2172

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation (Project No. 51601024), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Project No. 2016YFB0700403 & Project No. 2016YFB0301100), the Chongqing Research Program of Basic Research and Frontier Technology (Project No. cstc2016jcyjA0418), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project No. 2018CDJDCL0019, Project No. 2018CDJDCL0020 & Project No. 2018CDGFCL0005) and the support of the 111 Project (Project No. B16007) by the Ministry of Education and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs of China.