Mobility of pinned twin boundaries during mechanical loading of extruded binary Mg-1Zn alloy

The influence of isothermal aging, i.e. solute segregation and precipitation, on the mobility of {10 - 12} twin boundaries during mechanical loading of a binary Mg-1wt.%Zn alloy was investigated. Segregation along twin boundaries leads to a pinning effect and therefore, twin growth and shrinkage based on twin boundary migration are restricted. The development of microstructure changes, especially the twinning activity, is tracked by using scanning electron microscopy. During reverse loading, a reduction of the twinned volume fraction (detwinning) is realized either by (i) nucleation of new twins inside already existing twin lamellae or by (ii) migration of pinned twin boundaries, similarly to the case, when no heat treatment is applied. No effect of the orientation of the grain with respect to the loading direction during detwinning was observed.