Effect of extrusion ratio on the microstructure and texture evolution of AZ31 magnesium alloy by the staggered extrusion (SE)

There are many problems with the conventional processes of magnesium alloy bending products, such as long processes and difficulty in controlling the product shape. This paper provides a staggered extrusion (SE) process to solve the above manufacturing bottlenecks. The effects of different extrusion ratios (λ) on the AZ31 magnesium alloy bending products prepared by the SE process was investigated in this paper. The results show that the bending radii of the AZ31 Mg bending products increase with the increase of λ at the same staggered distance (h = 16 mm). When λ is increased from 11.11 to 44.44, the average bending radius of bending products is decreased from 14.7 mm to 9 mm, and the average grain size is decreased by 59.43%. After the SE process, the extruded fiber texture of the AZ31 Mg bending products is obvious, and the deformed texture is a mixed texture of {0001} 〈10–10〉 deformation texture and {10–11} 〈11–20〉 recrystallization texture. The results of XRD and EBSD showed that pyramidal slip is an important mode of crystal slip systems in AZ31 magnesium alloys during the SE process. It provided a scientific basis for forming AZ31 Mg alloy bending products with excellent microstructure by the SE process.