Deformation behavior and microstructure evolution of rare earth magnesium alloy during rotary extrusion

•A rotary extrusion forming process for cylindrical tubular parts is proposed.•The deformation behavior of rare-earth magnesium alloy under direct extrusion and rotary extrusion was compared.•The flow stress of the rotary extrusion is significantly lower than that of the direct backward extrusion.•The cup-shaped parts formed via rotary extrusion exhibits a typical gradient structure.•The width of refinement becomes wider as the rotations number increases. Rotary extrusion is a technique to produce workpieces with a very large strain and a weak texture. In this work, deformation behavior and microstructure evolution of magnesium alloys via rotary extrusion were investigated. The results show that the flow stress of the rotary extrusion is significantly lower than that of the direct backward extrusion. The equivalent stress decreases upon the increase of the rotations number. The cup-shaped parts formed via rotary extrusion exhibits a typical gradient structure, which expands from its center to the borders. The basal texture of the sample is smaller than that produced by direct backward extrusion. Moreover, it further decreases upon the increase of the rotation number.