Paired Twinning Behavior During Compression of Strongly Basal Textured AZ31 Alloy

An extruded AZ31 alloy was compressed along the extrusion direction at room temperature. Profuse tensile twins were activated. Paired twins including the connected twin pairs and randomly paired twins (unconnected twins) were studied by a combined analysis of Schmid factor (SF) and strain compatibility factor (m(f)). The results show that the nucleation of connected twin pairs preferentially occurs in the neighboring grains with a misorientation of 25 degrees. About 88% of the connected twins have high Schmid factor and about 76% of the connected twins show high strain compatibility factor. The occurrence of connected twin pairs with low values of Schmid factor is well interpreted by their high values of strain compatibility factor. Approximately 22% of the unconnected twin pairs have the strain compatibility factor values of zero.