Deformation behavior of commercial Mg-Al-Zn-Mn type alloys under a hydrostatic extrusion process at elevated temperatures

This paper presents the deformation behavior of commercial Mg-Al-Zn-Mn type alloys during hydrostatic extrusion process at elevated temperatures. In the current study commercial Mg-Al-Zn-Mn type alloys with different Al contents were subjected to hydrostatic extrusion process at a range of temperatures and at ram speeds of 4.5, 10 and 17 mm/sec. Under the hydrostatic condition at 518K, the alloy with Al contents of 2.9 wt% was successfully extruded at all applied speeds. The alloys with Al content of 5.89 and 7.86 wt% were successful up to 10mm/sec, and finally extrusion of alloy with Al content 8.46wt% was successful only at 4.5 mm/sec. These results show that the deformation limit in the Mg alloys in terms of extrusion speed greatly extended to higher value in the proximity of lower Al content. It is presumed that deformation becomes harder as Al content increases because of strengthening mechanism by solute drag to increase of supersaturated Mg17 Al12 precipitates. Also, microstructures of cast and extruded Mg alloys were compared. Defect-wide microstructure of cast alloy completely evolved into dense and homogeneous microstructure with equiaxed grains.