Strain-Rate Sensitivity Enhanced by Grain-Boundary Sliding in Creep Condition for AZ31 Magnesium Alloy at Room Temperature

Abstract

This study investigated strain-rate sensitivity (SRS) in an as-extruded AZ31 magnesium (Mg) alloy with grain size of about 10 mm. Although the alloy shows negligible SRS at strain rates of >10-5 s-1 at room temperature, the exponent increased by one order from 0.008 to 0.06 with decrease of the strain rate down to 10-8 s-1. The activation volume (V) was evaluated as approximately 100b3 at high strain rates and as about 15b3 at low strain rates (where b is the Burgers vector). In addition, deformation twin was observed only at high strain rates. Because the twin nucleates at the grain boundary, stress concentration is necessary to be accommodated by dislocation absorption into the grain boundary at low strain rates. Extrinsic grain boundary dislocations move and engender grain boundary sliding (GBS) with low thermal assistance. Therefore, GBS enhances and engenders SRS in AZ31 Mg alloy at room temperature.