Abstract
A phase-field model was established to simulate the refinement effect of different morphological factors of second-phase particles such as Al2O3 on the grain growth of AZ31 magnesium alloy during equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) in realistic spatiotemporal evolution. The simulation results agreed well with limited existing experimental data for the ECAP-processed AZ31 magnesium alloy and were consistent with the law of Zener. Simulations were performed to evaluate the influences of the fraction, size, distribution, and shape of incoherent second-phase particles. The simulation results showed that during high-temperature ECAP processes, the addition of 2 wt.% Al2O3 particles resulted in a strong refinement effect, reducing the grain size by 28.7% compared to that of the alloy without the particles. Nevertheless, when the fraction of particles was greater than 4 wt.%, adding more particles had little effect. In AZ31 Mg alloy, it was found that second-phase particles should have a critical size of 0.5–0.8 μm for the grain refinement effect to occur. If the size is smaller than the critical size, large particles will strongly hinder grain growth; in contrast, if the size is larger than the critical size, large particles will exhibit a weaker hindering effect than small particles. Moreover, the results showed that the refinement effect increased with increasing particle fraction located at grain boundaries with respect to the total particle content. However, the refinement effect was less pronounced when the fraction of particles located at boundaries was greater than 70%. Further simulations indicated that spherical second-phase particles hindered grain growth more than ellipsoid particles and much more than rod-shaped particles when the volume fraction of reinforcing particles was 2%. However, when the volume fraction was greater than 8%, rod-shaped particles best hindered grain growth, and spherical particles exhibited the weakest effect.
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