Improvement of Magnesium Sheet Formability by Alloying Addition of Rare Earth Elements

Abstract

The influences of rare earth elements addition on the crystallographic texture and microstructural evolutions are examined during rolling and annealing of Mg-sheets. In case of Nd or Y additions, dynamic recrystallisation is suppressed such that the deformed microstructure is observed after hot rolling with relatively large strain per pass. Cold rolled binary Mg-Nd alloy sheet shows strong texture with splitting of the basal poles in the rolling direction, however, the texture intensity decreases significantly during the recrystallisation annealing. From the comparison of deep drawing behaviours between commercial ZE10 and AZ31 sheets, it is observed that the addition of the rare earth elements and accompanying texture changes result in the improved formability.