Grain refinement mechanism and mechanical properties of wrought Zn-0.1Mg-0.02Mn alloys by rolling at different reductions

Zinc alloys have great potential to become a new generation of biodegradable implant materials for biomedical applications due to their moderate corrosion rates. However, the poor mechanical properties restrict the application of pure zinc as biomedical materials. In this study, Zn-0.1Mg-0.02Mn alloy was rolled to different reductions at room temperature. The 80% reduction rolled alloy showed the best mechanical performance with ultimate tensile strength and elongation of 397.7 MPa and 15.9%, respectively, which satisfy the requirement of biomedical implant materials. Grain refinement mainly promoted the strength enhancement with increased rolling reductions. The microstructure evolution reveals that the basal-oriented grains and non-basal-oriented grains had different deformation mechanisms to induce DRX process during rolling. DRX could be directly accelerated in basal-oriented grains by basal slip, while twinning and de-twinning process operate to refine the non-basal-oriented grains. & COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Zinc alloys have the potential to be biodegradable implant materials due to their moderate corrosion rates, but the poor mechanical properties of pure zinc restrict their application. In this study, a Zn-0.1Mg-0.02Mn alloy was rolled at room temperature to different reductions. The alloy with 80% reduction showed the best mechanical performance, meeting the requirements for biomedical implant materials with an ultimate tensile strength of 397.7 MPa and an elongation of 15.9%. Grain refinement played a major role in enhancing the strength, with different deformation mechanisms observed for basal-oriented and non-basal-oriented grains.