Evaluation of the deformation behavior in directionally solidified Mg–Y–Zn alloys containing LPSO phases by AE analysis

Compression tests of directionally solidified (DS) Mg85Zn6Y9 alloys were conducted from surface observations and acoustic emission (AE) measurements. In the compression tests, deformation bands were generated in the early deformation stage. The number of microcracks started to increase from approximately 100MPa and rapidly increased around the yielding point. Clustering analysis was applied to the extracted AE events in the compression tests. The AE events were divided into two clusters. The observation results showed that one cluster was considered to be AE events generated by kink deformation and the other was considered to be AE events generated by microcracks. Inverse analysis was applied to the extracted AE events, and the displacement of height generated by kink deformation was quantitatively estimated in the compression test. It can be concluded that AE analysis is an effective method to evaluate the dynamic deformation behavior of DS Mg–Y–Zn alloys containing LPSO phases.