Effect of rolling reduction on microstructure, texture, mechanical properties and mechanical anisotropy of AZ31 magnesium alloys

Mechanical properties of as-rolled magnesium alloy sheets show an obvious anisotropy during rolling. To get sheets with excellent performance and investigate the effect of microstructure, texture on mechanical properties and mechanical anisotropy, AZ31 magnesium alloy sheets with 4 mm in thickness were obtained by multi-pass hot rolling using different single pass rolling reductions. The texture evolution of the as-rolled AZ31 magnesium sheets was analyzed by the electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) method. The Hall-Petch and Schmid law effect were discussed in detail on the basis of experiment. A revised form of Hall-Petch formula was proposed with the consideration of texture effect as sigma(s-t) = (0.3/m(t))(sigma(0) + kd(-1/2)). The mechanical properties were greatly enhanced by multi-pass hot rolling and the enhancement was attributed to both grain refinement and texture intensity. The results would provide useful guidance to design a rolling processing route for AZ31 Mg Alloys sheet. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.