Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of Rapidly Solidified Mg-Al-Zn-MM Alloys

Mg-Al-Zn-MM (misch metal) alloy powders were manufactured by inert gas atomization and the characteristics of alloy powders were investigated. In spite of the low fluidity and easy oxidation of the magnesium melt, the spherical powder was made successfully with the improved three piece nozzle systems of gas atomization unit.It was found that most of the solidified powders with particles size of less than 50 μm in diameter were single crystal and the solidification structure of rapidly solidified powders showed a typical dendritic morphology because of supercooling prior to nucleation. The spacing of secondary denrite arms was deceasing as the size of powders was decreasing. The rapidly solidified powders were consolidated by vacuum hot extrusion and the effects of misch metal addition to AZ91 on mechanical properties of extruded bars were also examined. During extrusion of the rapidly solidified powders, their dendritic structure was broken into fragments and remained as grains of about 3μm in size. The Mg-Al-Ce intermetallic compounds formed in the interdendritic regions of powders were finely broken, too. The tensile strength and ductility obtained in as-extruded Mg-9 wt pct Al-1 wt pct Zn-3 wt pct MM alloy were σT.S. =383 MPa and ε=10.6%, respectively. All of these improvements on mechanical properties were resulted from the refined microstructure and second-phase dispersions.