Papers by Author: Qu Dong Wang

Abstract: The compressive creep behaviour of extruded Mg-10Gd-3Y-0.5Zr (wt.%, GW103) alloy was investigated at temperatures from 200 °C to 300 °C and under stresses from 50 MPa to 120 MPa. The peak-aged alloy exhibited minimum creep rates ranging from 1.90×10^-9 s^-1 to 6.14×10^-6 s^-1 and the aging treatment exerted a positive effect on its creep performance. The measured stress exponent of the peak-aged extruded alloy varied from 2.0 to 3.4, while the activation energy was 83.4 kJ/mol and 184.3 kJ/mol at low temperature and high temperature regime, respectively. This suggested grain boundary sliding was the primary creep mechanism at low temperature but dislocation-controlled creep dominated at high temperature. XRD patterns and SEM micrographs indicated precipitates increased with creep time, and further dynamic recrystallization occurred. Precipitate free zones (PFZs) were clearly observed near the grain boundaries parallel to the loading direction.

Abstract: Repetitive upsetting (RU) was applied to a commercial AZ31 Mg alloy. The samples were processed at temperatures of 230 °C, 250 °C and 300 °C up to 3 passes. Effects of processing temperature on the microstructure and mechanical properties were investigated. The results indicate that the microstructure was effectively refined by RU and an average grain size of ~1.9 μm was obtained at 250 °C. Increasing the temperature resulted in larger mean grain size and higher microstructural homogeneity. Both the strength and hardness were significantly improved. It was also found that increasing the processing temperature led to increase in the strength but decrease in the ductility. The sample after RU 3 passes at 230 °C had tensile strength of 330 MPa compared with 173 MPa prior to the processing.

Abstract: Alloy Mg-10Gd-3Y-0,4Zr in as-cast, as-extruded, cast-T6 (peak aged) and extruded-T5 (peak aged) state was tensile creep tested at 200, 250 and 300 °C and stress 50, 80 and 120 MPa. Comparison of minimal creep rate shows that alloy Mg-10Gd-3Y-0,4Zr in cast-T6 conditions is characterized by an excellent creep resistance, which is higher than that of commercially available Mg-alloys. Creep resistance of as-cast, as-extruded and extruded-T5 alloy Mg-10Gd-3Y-0,4Zr is lower. Cavity nucleation is heavily affected by the amount of secondary phases on the grain boundaries and also by the initial grain size of the microstructure. After extrusion and in the extruded-T5 conditions creep cavitation was not observed, whereas in the as-cast and cast-T6 conditions creep cavitation occurred on the high fraction of grain boundaries.

Abstract: The production of primary aluminum is an energy costly process. With the global warming being of concern, the secondary aluminum stream is becoming an even more important component of aluminum production and is attractive due to its economic and environmental benefits. Recycling of aluminum by new solid state recycling techniques instead of conventional remelting and subsequent refining processing can result in significant energy savings. Severe Plastic Deformation (SPD) techniques have been applied for consolidating nano particles into fully dense materials with good mechanical properties. However, solid state recycling of scraps by SPD is only in the beginning. In the present study, degreasing of aluminum chips from the machine workshop was investigated by a thermal method and chemical treatment. Thereafter, the decoated chips were recycled by Cyclic Extrusion Compression (CEC) at deformation temperatures between 400 and 500 °C. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the recycled aluminum scrap processed by SPD were subsequently investigated. The results show that SPD technology provides a promising alternative for recycling of aluminum scrap. Thermal degreasing of aluminum scrap resulted in more oxidization of aluminum scrap particles. Visible interfaces between chips were observed even at a low magnification.

Abstract: Mg-3wt.%Y alloys were processed by cyclic extrusion and compression (CEC) up to 7 passes at different temperatures from 375 to 450 °C, respectively. The microstructure was effectively refined and the mean grain size was decreased from 800 μm to 3–15 μm. Tensile and compressive tests were performed at room temperature at an initial strain rate of 1.11 × 10-3 s-1. The experimental results show that after 7-pass CEC processing the tensile yield strength and elongation-to-failure of Mg-3Y alloy increased simultaneously. Furthermore, the strength differential effect (SDE) of tension-compression of the alloy was weakened, especially the SDE value was only 3.3% when processed at 400 °C.

Abstract: Cyclic channel die compression (CCDC) of AZ31-1.7 wt.% Si alloy was performed up to 5 passes at 623 K in order to investigate the microstructure and mechanical properties of compressed alloys. The results show that multi-pass CCDC is very effective to refine the matrix grain and Mg2Si phases. After the alloy is processed for 5 passes, the mean grain size decreases from 300 μm of as-cast to 8 μm. Both dendritic and Chinese script type Mg2Si phases break into small polygonal pieces and distribute uniformly in the matrix. The tensile strength increases prominently from 118 MPa to 216 MPa, whereas the hardness of alloy deformed 5 passes only increase by 8.4% compared with as-cast state.

Abstract: An appropriate hot compaction technology is applied not only to obtain high-density blocks from chips, but to consume relatively low energy. In this paper, regression analysis is used to optimize hot compaction processing of machined chips in an indirect solid-state recycling. The nonlinear relation of the temperature, the press and deformation velocity was established according to the rheology of the matrix material using MRA. The lowest energy consumption as criterion is also introduced to further optimize hot compaction parameters in the solid-state recycling. The results based on MRA show that high-density (93%) blocks are obtained according to the built model and that effect of work velocity of the hydrostatic machine on total energy consumption is negligible. During hot compaction, the higher temperature, the more total energy consumption. Besides, void and interface between chips in these hot compaction blocks will be disappeared by extrusion deformation.

Abstract: Cyclic extrusion compression (CEC) is an effective severe plastic deformation (SPD) process which can be used for fabricating ultrafine grained light materials such as magnesium alloys. This method introduces three-dimensional compression and shear stresses and the process can be repeated for a certain number of passes until the desired accumulated strain has been introduced. In order to reveal the effect of second phases on the microstructure developed in magnesium alloys during CEC, three different alloys (AZ31, AZ31-1wt.%Si and AZ91) were investigated after CEC 7 passes performed at 225°C. The experimental results show that the CEC process can effectively refine the microstructures of these alloys and the mean grain size achieved is 1.3µm, 1.5µm and 1.4µm, respectively. It is revealed that the grain size, grain shape and grain boundary structures are little affected by coarse phase Mg2Si but strongly affected by the fine phase Mg17Al12. The fine phase Mg17Al12 seems to increase the relative grain misorientations, hence enhancing the formation of high angle grain boundaries (HAGBs). It is expected that such changes are improving mechanical properties, subsequent forming behavior and surface quality.

Abstract: The effect of Nd and Y addition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of as-extruded Mg-Zn-Zr magnesium alloy has been investigated in this study. The Mg-Zn-Zr alloy had 11 μm average grain size due to dynamic recrystallization during hot extrusion; but the average grain sizes of the Mg-Zn-Nd-Y-Zr alloys were markedly reduced to 4 μm by Nd and Y additions. The lamellar α-Mg + T phase or α-Mg + W phase eutectics at grain boundaries in as-cast Mg-Zn-Nd-Y-Zr alloys were broken up and MgZn2 precipitates in the matrix are obtained during hot extrusions. The mechanical properties of as-extruded Mg-Zn-Zr alloy were improved significantly by Nd and Y additions, especially the elevated temperature strength, which was above 150 MPa in ultimate tensile strength at 250 °C. These may be ascribed to the very fine grain size, the dispersed T phase or W phase and the MgZn2 type Laves phase precipitating during hot extrusion.

Abstract: Microstructure and mechanical properties of Mg-6.0wt%Zn-0.5wt%Zr (ZK60) alloy were studied as a function of cooling rate. The temperature field and cooling rate during the casting process were investigated by use of finite element analysis (FEA) simulation. The results showed that the microstructure was refined and the eutectic phase distributed much uniformly with the increase of cooling rate. The increase of yield strength, ultimate strength and elongation can be ascribed to the strengthening effect of fine grain. Relationship between grain size and yield strength is consistent with the Hall-Petch formalism: 1/ 2 80.37 132.56 − = + d y σ .