A uniformly fine-grained Mg-Y-Nd-Zr magnesium alloy with simultaneously optimized strength and ductility processed by forging and ECAP

In this work, as-cast rare earth Mg-2Y-0.6Nd-0.5Zr alloy was successfully processed by forging at 350 °C and different numbers of passes of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) along the Bc route. The effects of ECAP on the microstructure, texture and mechanical properties of a pre-forged Mg-2Y-0.6Nd-0.5Zr alloy were systematically investigated in this paper. The grain size of the alloy was refined from 140 μ m to 1.9 μ m by forging + ECAP. The alloy has obtained a uniform and fine microstructure under the action of dynamic recrystallization (DRX) during the ECAP process. The forged sample exhibited a strong basal texture. However, the alloy that was processed with ECAP had a tilted texture; the basal orientation was weakened, and the cylindrical and pyramidal orientation was enhanced. An analysis of the mechanical properties showed that the alloy exhibited favorable tensile strength and elongation of 262 MPa and 22.4% after forging and 4 passes of ECAP, which were increased by 118% and 113% compared with the as-cast sample. The alloy strength decreased slightly due to textural transformation and a high degree of recrystallization during ECAP, while the plasticity of the alloy that underwent 6 ECAP passes increased to 25.2%. The results show that the combination processing of forging and ECAP provides a new approach for optimizing the mechanical properties of magnesium alloys.