Xiaoqing Cao

Enhanced Stretch Formability of AZ31 Magnesium Alloy Thin Sheet by Induced Precompression and Sequent Annealing

In this study, precompression deformation with a strain level of 5.38% along the transverse direction (TD) at room temperature was conducted on a AZ31 magnesium alloy thin sheet with thickness of 1mm. Then subsequent annealing treatment was carried out at various temperatures (200, 300, 400, and 500 °C) to induce static recrystallization (SRX) and grain growth. The stretch formability was also investigated using the hemispherical test. The results showed that the twinning texture induced by the precompression process was nearly inherited by recrystallized grains after annealing process. Grains grew up and the size increased with the increase of annealing temperature. The largest grain size was obtained when annealing at 400 °C. The mechanical properties including strength and ductility decreased due to the development of coarse grains, however, the stretch formability was enhanced significantly. Indeed, the IE-value increased from 2.83 mm in the as-received Mg alloy sheet to 5.78 mm in the precompressed and 400 °C annealed specimens, leading to an improvement of 104%. This was ascribed to the rotated grain orientation and higher activity of (10–12) twins in coarse grains.

Research on the Warm Deep Drawing of AZ31 Magnesium Alloy Sheet Based on DYNAFORM

The effect of forming temperature on the deep drawability (limit drawing ratio (LDR)) of AZ31 magnesium alloy sheet was studied both numerically and experimentally by the use of finite element analysis software DYNAFORM and specially designed warm deep drawing die set. The simulation model was built by SolidWorks 2009, 3-Parameter_Barlat model with BT shell unit was adopted as material model. The constitutive relation of the material was provided by uniaxial isothermal tension tests at different temperatures. After being set, all parameters were referred to famous explicit dynamic solver LS-DYNA. The simulation results showed that the LDR of the AZ31 magnesium alloy sheet is increased with the increase of the temperature initially, but after the temperature reached 423K, the LDR reached the maximum, and then decrease with the increase of temperature in the temperature range studied (room temperature-673K). PTEF was used as lubricant in the experiment. Experimental results showed same trend as numerical simulation results in the studied range of temperature, and LDR reached the maximum of 3.0 at 423K. It is shown that the results of numerical simulation have a good agreement with that of the experiment. By analyzing the microstructure of the drawn-cup walls at different temperatures, it is found that grains were stretched along the direction of tension at temperatures lower than 423K. And there appeared a large number of fine recrystallized grains when forming temperature is 423K showing that dynamic recrystallization occurred during forming process. Dynamic recrystallization conducted completely when forming temperature increased higher than 423K, but the material softening would aggravate with the increase of temperature and on the contrary would do harm to the deep drawing of AZ31 magnesium alloy sheet, resulting the decrease of LDR.