Effect of Calcium on the Strength and Hot Working Behavior of AZ31 Magnesium Alloy

Magnesium alloys are light weight materials being developed for aerospace, automobile, electronic and bio-implant applications. For use in load-bearing applications, wrought magnesium alloys are preferred and Mg-3Al-1Zn (AZ31) is one of the popular alloys. However, it suffers from two limitations:inadequate higher temperature strength anddifficulty in achieving microstructural control during processing.In this project, it is proposed to make Ca addition to AZ31 to mitigate these two problems. Ca forms intermetallic compound (Mg,Al)2Ca in the matrix which enhances the higher temperature strength, refines the grain size and “stabilizes” the microstructure during processing. The aim of the project is to evaluate the effect of Ca addition on the high temperature strength and hot working behavior of AZ31 alloy and develop a processing schedule that ensures product quality and reproducibility. For this purpose, materials modeling techniques including processing maps and kinetic analysis will be applied and the results validated.