Enhancing Strength and Maintaining Ductility of Mg-3%Li-1%Sc Alloy by Equal Channel Angular Pressing

Equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) has been conducted on as-cast Mg-3%Li-1%Sc alloy for four-passes to study the microstructure uniformity and tensile properties. After ECAP, the microstructure become muddled, contains about 65% of deformed coarse grains with abundant low angle grain boundaries and about 35% of recrystallized small grains. Meanwhile, a strong basal texture is formed in the ECAP sample. The texture type of the recrystallized grains and the deformed grains are the same, however, the texture strength of the recrystallized grains is much lower than the deformed ones. Tensile strength is improved effectively and the elongation is maintained after ECAP. The increment of strength results from the microstructure refinement and residual dislocations produced by ECAP, while the recovery of ductility may be attributed to a shear type texture formed in the alloy during ECAP.