Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Cyclic Relaxation of Die Cast Magnesium Alloy

Magnesium alloys are among the best light-weight structural material with a relatively high strength-to-weight ratio end excellent technological properties. Therefore, magnesium attracts special attention of researchers working in automotive and aircraft industry. This work paid the efforts to the structural components made out of magnesium alloy AM60 such as chassis, transmission case in automotive, where the components are subject to cyclic loading after being pre-loaded. In this study, the cyclic stress-strain behaviors were investigated by strain-controlled fatigue testing. In order to investigate the effects of R-ratio on mean stress relaxation, the R-ratio ranged from 0.1 to 0.7 at the strain amplitude of 0.3%. The experimental results indicate that the mean stress relaxation increases with the increasing R-ratio. A constitutive model was proposed to simulate the mean stress relaxation. The calculation results show that the constitutive model developed in this work is capable of reproducing the stress relaxation behaviors of magnesium alloy AM60 under strain control.