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Microstructural and mechanical properties of ZA10 alloy tubes and their weld seams prepared by Conform continuous extrusion

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Abstract

In the present work, Zn–10Al–2Cu–0.05Ti (ZA10) alloy tubes with a diameter of 12.5 mm and wall thickness of 1.2 mm were fabricated by one-pass and double-pass Conform continuous extrusion. A stabilizing heat treatment [350 °C, 30 min (furnace cooling) + 120 °C, 12 h (air cooling)] was also applied to some of the double-pass tubes to improve the quality of their weld seams. The yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, elongation and expansion ratio of the one-pass continuous extrusion tube were 268.4 MPa, 294.3 MPa, 13.8% and 5.5%, respectively. Double-pass continuous extrusion improved these values to 278.4 MPa, 317.2 MPa, 15.4% and 11.4%, respectively. Double-pass tubes also had fewer aggregations of Al-α precipitates along the welding seam, which improved seam quality and caused cracks to appear in the matrix, away from the weld-affected zone, during expansion testing. Heat-treated double-pass tubes exhibited superior yield strength (283.9 MPa) and ultimate tensile strength (328.5 MPa) but lower elongation (10.2%) and expansion ratios (10.3%). Additionally, the heat-treated tubes exhibited markedly lower elongation at room temperature due to the remarkable blockage of dislocation motions by fine-scale lamellar (α + η) eutectoid structures and a lower size effect when stretched.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National 11th Five-Year Science and Technology Support Program of China (No. 2009BAE71B00), and Hunan Science and Technology Plan Key Project (No. 2012GK4012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Gao-Yong Lin, Meng-Qiong Xiao, Xin-Yi Liu, Hong-Yang Wang & Rui Zhang

  2. Key Lab of Nonferrous Materials, Ministry of Education, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Gao-Yong Lin, Meng-Qiong Xiao, Xin-Yi Liu, Hong-Yang Wang & Rui Zhang

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, 212003, China

    Di Feng

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  1. Gao-Yong Lin
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Correspondence to Gao-Yong Lin.

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Lin, GY., Xiao, MQ., Feng, D. et al. Microstructural and mechanical properties of ZA10 alloy tubes and their weld seams prepared by Conform continuous extrusion. Rare Met. 39, 707–715 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-020-01437-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-020-01437-x

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