Researches on a novel severe plastic deformation method combining direct extrusion and shearings for AZ61 magnesium alloy based on numerical simulation and experiments

Abstract

A new severe plastic deformation method called extrusion-shearing shorten for “ES” has been developed to fabricate the ultra-fine grained AZ61 magnesium alloys. The correlation theories of ES process have been studied which includes cumulative strain and Zener-Hollomon parameter etc. Simulations of ES process for wrought AZ61 magnesium alloy have been performed using three-dimensional finite element method. ES dies with one step shearing and two step shearings have been designed, manufactured and installed onto thermo-mechanical simulator and industrial horizontal extruder, respectively. Microstructures evolution has been observed and analysed. The influences of the ES processes on the grain refinements of AZ61magniesium alloys during multistage processes have been investigated. Based on the experimental, simulation and theoretical results, ES process could increase the cumulative strains enormously and refine grain sizes by direct extrusion and additional shearings. ES process can produce the serve plastic deformation and improve the volume fraction of dynamic recrystallization. Continuous dynamic recrystallizaion is the main reason for grain refinements during ES process.