Evolution of microstructure, texture and mechanical properties of ZK60 magnesium alloy in a single rolling pass

The evolution of microstructure and texture in a single rolling pass was investigated at rolling temperature of 250 degrees C. Based on the analysis of microstructure evolution, thickness reduction of 31% was identified as a critical deformation strain for the occurrence of continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) in this work. CDRX strikingly refined the grain size and improved the microstructure homogeneity. The results based on intragranular misorientation axis analysis showed that the activation of abundant stochastic stored dislocations with a broad range of orientations developed in CDRX was the main reason of the transformation from < 10-10 > //RD texture to randomized texture along <10-10>-arc in inverse pole figure. Microhardness distribution was mainly influenced by the fraction of deformed grains. Grain refinement increased yield stress and uniform elongation, while weaker texture only increased uniform elongation.