Abstract
The effect of Al additions on grain refinement of Mg-Gd-Y alloys with different solute contents at different cooling rates has been investigated. For all alloys, significant grain refinement was due to the formation of Al2(Gd x Y1−x ) nucleant particles. The number density and size distribution of Al2(Gd x Y1−x ) were affected by both solute content and the cooling rate. Grain sizes (d gs) of Mg-Gd-Y base alloys and of Mg-Gd-Y-Al alloys were related to solute content (defined by the growth restriction factor, Q), cooling rate (\( \dot{T} \)), and area number density (ρ ns) and size (d p) of nucleant particles that can be activated. It is found that grain sizes of Mg-Gd-Y base alloys follow the relationship \( d_{\text{gs}} = a + \frac{b}{{Q\sqrt {\dot{T}} }} \), while grain sizes of Al-refined samples follow the relationship \( d_{\text{gs}} = \frac{a'}{{\sqrt {\rho {}_{\text{ns}}} }} + \frac{b'}{{\sqrt {\dot{T}} Qd_{\text{p}} }} \), where a, b, a′, and b′ were constants. In addition, the grain refinement effect of Al additions was more susceptible to solute content and the cooling rate than that of Zr which is regarded as the most efficient grain refiner for Mg alloys.
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Acknowledgments
The work is sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51275295), CAST Cooperative Research Centre of Australia, ARC Discovery Grant DP2010000071 (ME, DQ, MZ) and Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Nos. 20120073120011 and 20130073110052). The authors acknowledge Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy (MCEM) for access to experimental facilities and thank Mr. Andrew Yob and Mrs. Maya Gershenzon at CSIRO for help with experiments.
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Dai, J., Easton, M.A., Zhang, M. et al. Effects of Cooling Rate and Solute Content on the Grain Refinement of Mg-Gd-Y Alloys by Aluminum. Metall Mater Trans A 45, 4665–4678 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11661-014-2390-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11661-014-2390-2