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. 2017 Oct 17;8(1):972.
doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-01330-9.

Super-formable pure magnesium at room temperature

Zhuoran Zeng  1 , Jian-Feng Nie  2 , Shi-Wei Xu  3 , Chris H J Davies  4 , Nick Birbilis  5
Affiliations

Super-formable pure magnesium at room temperature

Zhuoran Zeng et al. Nat Commun. .

Abstract

Magnesium, the lightest structural metal, is difficult to form at room temperature due to an insufficient number of deformation modes imposed by its hexagonal structure and a strong texture developed during thermomechanical processes. Although appropriate alloying additions can weaken the texture, formability improvement is limited because alloying additions do not fundamentally alter deformation modes. Here we show that magnesium can become super-formable at room temperature without alloying. Despite possessing a strong texture, magnesium can be cold rolled to a strain at least eight times that possible in conventional processing. The resultant cold-rolled sheet can be further formed without cracking due to grain size reduction to the order of one micron and inter-granular mechanisms becoming dominant, rather than the usual slip and twinning. These findings provide a pathway for developing highly formable products from magnesium and other hexagonal metals that are traditionally difficult to form at room temperature.Replacing steel or aluminium vehicle parts with magnesium would result in reduced emissions, but shaping magnesium without cracking remains challenging. Here, the authors successfully extrude and roll textured magnesium into ductile foil at low temperatures by activating intra-granular mechanisms.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Cold compression of extruded specimens. a Room temperature compressive true stress-strain curves of specimens extruded a in the temperature range 25–300 °C. b Room temperature compression of specimens extruded at 80 and 400 °C. Photo insets show the specimens before and after compression test. Scale bars in photo insets indicate 5 mm
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Cold rolling of extruded specimens. a Photo showing one 3 mm thick plate extruded at 80 °C, and after 67 and 96% cold rolling without any trimming of specimen edges along the rolling direction. The strip cold rolled by 96% was cut into two pieces that were shaped into letters “mg”. b Photo showing a cold-rolled 1 mm strip that is bent by ~180° (spring back by ~10°) at room temperature. c Photos showing a cold-rolled 0.12 mm thick foil folded twice, then unfolded, without any visible cracks. Scale bars in a–c indicate 20, 3 and 5 mm, respectively
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Microstructures before and after deformation. a–e Electron backscattered diffraction and f–j transmission Kikuchi diffraction maps showing microstructure of specimens extruded at a–e 400 °C and f–j 80 °C and in a, f as-extruded state, b after 20% and g 50% compression, and c after 20% and h 50% cold rolling. d, e, i, j Maps showing orientation spread in individual grains in compressed and cold-rolled specimens. Scale bars in a–e and f–j indicate 100 µm and 2 µm, respectively
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Microstructure evolution during cold compression. Secondary electron micrographs showing a deformation twins (T) and b slip traces (S) in a specimen extruded at 400 °C and compressed by 20%. c, d Quasi-in-situ electron backscattered diffraction maps showing the same cross-section area of a specimen extruded at 80 °C c before and d after 6% compression in the direction perpendicular to the cross-section area. An extra grain, marked by red cross, has appeared in the area after the compression. e, f Kernel average misorientation maps of c, d qualitatively showing strain distribution in individual grains. 0° indicates low strain and 5° high strain. The red cross grain has similar kernel average misorientation. Scale bars in a–c–f indicate 20 µm and 500 nm, respectively
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Deformation modes in coarse-grained and fine-grained specimens. Schematic diagrams showing microstructure a before, and b after compression at room temperature. The dominant deformation mechanism is intra-granular dislocation slip and twinning in a coarse-grained microstructure that is produced by 400 °C extrusion, and inter-granular mechanisms (grain boundary sliding, which is accommodated by grain rotation, and dynamic recrystallisation) in a fine-grained microstructure resulting from near room temperature extrusion. Scale bars for coarse-grained and fine-grained microstructures indicate ~80 and ~5 µm, respectively
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