Investigation of tensile creep behavior of Mg–Gd–Y–Zr alloy based on creep constitutive model

Abstract

The tensile creep behavior of as-extruded and T6 treated Mg–8Gd–3Y–0.3Zr (GW83) alloy was estimated under temperature at 170–200 °C and stress at 40–70 MPa. The results showed that the primary creep strain and steady state creep rate increased, while the duration of steady state creep decreased with increasing temperature and stress. The primary creep constitutive model of GW83 alloy kept an Andrade power law ε = βt k with k value of 0.24–0.6 for as-extruded alloy and 0.13–0.49 for T6 alloy, respectively. The steady state creep plastic deformation of as-extruded and T6 state alloys can be expressed by Arrhenius constitutive equations with stress exponents 5.6–5.9 and 8.9–9.8, creep activity energy 124.9–135.6 kJ/mol and 152.2–195.8 kJ/mol, respectively. The tensile creep resistance of GW83 alloy improved significantly by T6 heat treatment, the effect of temperature on steady state creep rate was relatively moderate, and the tensile creep plastic deformation of GW83 alloy mainly was controlled by applied stress. The steady state creep deformation mechanism of as-extruded GW83 alloy was regulated by Mg self-diffusion conducted by dislocation climb before heat treatment, and then transformed to dislocation cross-slip after T6 treated. The recrystallization and texture evolution of (10) , (10) played a non-ignorable effect on the tensile creep deformation. The creep rupture life can be predicted by steady state creep rate that will be controlled by temperature under low and intermediate stress and by stress under larger applied stress, respectively. The creep fracture surfaces with coarse dimples and tear ridges presented as ductile transgranular fracture features with the secondary cracks occurred.