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Automobile manufacturers are interested in lightweight materials, including magnesium, to increase vehicle fuel economy, improve performance and reduce emissions. In this work the deformation behavior of as-cast and rolled magnesium AZ31 alloy has been studied. In as-cast material, it was found that reheating at 400°C and above for 60 minutes increased the homogeneity of the as-cast structure and gave rise to repeatable deformation. At compression temperatures above 300°C dynamic recrystallization occurred; below 200°C, there was significant twinning. Annealing completely recrystallized the structure deformed below 200°C, but did not change the dynamically recrystallized structure. AZ31 alloy was also rolled at temperatures of 350, 400 and 450°C and rolling speeds of 20 and 50 rpm for 15 and 30% reduction in thickness to produce sheet. Before rolling, the alloy was preheated for I and 10 hours at the rolling temperatures. The sheets were then tensile tested at 300, 400 and 450°C with strain rates of 0.1, 0.01 and 0.001s-1. The flow curves and microstructures indicated that the tensile deformation mechanism changed with processing conditions. Two deformation mechanisms were present in the magnesium sheet depending on the strain rate and grain size. At slow strain rates and small grain size, the active deformation mechanism was grain boundary sliding. As grain sizes increased there was also a component of dislocation creep. At the fast strain rate, the deformation mechanism, regardless of grain size, was dislocation creep. At a true strain rate of 0.001s-1, it was found that rolling at 350°C with 30% reduction per pass yielded the finest microstructure and subsequently, the best hot deformation characteristics. At a true strain rate of 0.1s-1, rolling at 450°C with 30% reduction per pass yielded a coarser, more recrystallized microstructure with best hot deformation characteristics.

Nanopowders and bulk nanostructred materials have gained large interest in recent years. Bulk nanostructured materials exhibit properties that are far superior in comparison to conventional micron grained alloys. The fabrication of large scale nano-grained materials has been achieved in a two step process: (1) the production of nanostructured aluminium alloy powders and (2) the consolidation of the powder using a electromagnetic shockwave process. / The first part consists of cryo-milling; the milling of powder in an attritor filled with liquid nitrogen. This causes successive welding and fracturing events as the powder is milled, thereby creating the nano-structure. The low temperature prevents the possibility of recrystallization and grain growth. The alloy used for this work was Al 5356 (Al-5%Mg). Two different types of raw source materials were investigated: pre-alloyed powders and a mixture of aluminum with pure magnesium or an Al12Mg17 intermetallic. Experiments have been conducted in order to determine the optimum milling parameters that will simultaneously give a grain size smaller than 100 nm; equiaxed milled particles and mechanically alloyed powder (in the case of the mixture). The optimum milling parameters were established at 15 hours of milling time with a rotational speed of 300 RPM and ball to powder weight ratio of 24:1 in the case of the pre-alloyed powders. For the mixture of pure aluminum with pure magnesium the parameters were 15 hours, 300RPM and 32:1. The parameters for the mixture with the intermetallic were 18 hours, 300RPM and 32:1. / The dynamic magnetic compaction technique was done with a peak pressure of 1.1 GPa. This ultra-high strain rate process minimizes the exposure of the powders to high temperature and therefore reduces the possibility of recrystallization and grain growth. Relative densities of compacted pieces obtained ranged from 86.39% to 97.97%. However consolidation characterized by particle to particle bonding with a melted layer was not accomplished.

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Magnesium alloys have a great potential in automotive industries, compared to steel and aluminium (Al), Magnesium (Mg) is much lighter and this weight reduction improves fuel efficiency and lowers green gas emission. Due to its hexagonal crystal structure, magnesium has poor ductility at room temperature. Magnesium's ductility improves significantly above about 200°C due to thermal activation of additional slip systems. This has lead to efforts to form auto-body panels with commercial AZ31 magnesium sheet at elevated temperatures. In this work, various AZ31 magnesium alloy materials were used to investigate the influence of deformation conditions on texture and microstructure. Moreover, it is to define the correlation between formability and different deformation mechanisms. / It was observed that only basal slip and twinning contributed to room temperature deformation. As deformation temperature increased, an increase in ductility in Mg contributed to dynamic recrystallization occurring readily at elevated temperatures (≥300°C). Even coarse grain material experienced significant tensile elongation due grain refinement. Depending on temperature and strain rate, different deformation mechanisms were activated and lead to different failure modes (moderate necking, cavity, strong necking). More specifically, deformation at elevated temperature in the low-strain-rate regime with stress exponent n about 2-3 and activation energy close to grain-boundary diffusion of Mg (Q = 92 kJ/mol) is characteristic of GBS. Deformation at elevated temperature in the high strain rate regime showed that the stress exponent increased to a value close to 5 and that the activation energy was consistent with the one for Mg self-diffusion (135 kJ/mol) and for diffusion of Al in Mg (143 kJ/mol). This was indicative of a dislocation creep deformation mechanism. Plus the six-fold symmetric patterns of the {1 100} and {1120} pole figures and the splitting of basal plane distribution are another indication of slip mechanism or of dislocation creep mechanism. / The optimum deformation behavior for AZ31 sheet was found to be for the material with fine grain microstructure. The highest elongation of 265% was obtained with the material having initial grain size of 8 mum. In addition, strain-rate sensitivity, which is a good indication of material's ductility, also was the highest in material with 8 mum grain size. As a common trend, the strain-rate sensitivity increased with decreasing strain rate, increasing temperature and decreasing grain size. / In terms of drawability of AZ31 sheet, the deformation controlled by GBS resulted in a fair drawability/formability property with r-value about 1 whereas a deformation mechanism controlled by dislocation creep showed a good drawability with r-value above 1.5. Due to activation of additional slip systems (non-basal <a> and <c+a>), the thinning of the sheet was prevented, in particular at deformation conditions of 450°C with 0.1s-1 where r-value was highest. This deformation condition might suggest good forming process parameters, especially for deep drawing, for the commercial AZ31 sheet under investigation. A preliminary study of Forming Limit Diagram for AZ31 sheet was performed by the Limit Dome Height test method at 300°C. The FLD0 of AZ31 was found to be 67%; the part depth of biaxial forming was 1.86 in; and the maximum LDH varied from 2.4 to 2.6 in.

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