Properties of AZ31 Magnesium Alloy Sheet Produced by Twin Roll Casting

Twin roll casting has been used to produce AZ31 magnesium alloy strip. The size of the cast strip is 5mm thick and 250mm wide. The microstructure of the as-cast AZ31 alloy strip consists of columnar zones from the surface to mid-thickness region and equiaxed zones in the mid-thickness region. The secondary dendrite arm spacing varies from 5.0 to 6.5 μm through the thickness and width of the strip and is much smaller than 34μm of an AZ31 alloy DC ingot used for comparison. In the temperature ranging from room temperature to 400°C, the tensile strength and elongation of the as-cast strip are higher and smaller than those of DC ingot, respectively. Elongation is evidently improved by homogenization treatment and becomes more than that of the DC ingot. Such an improvement of elongation is though to be caused by homogenization of segregation of Al and Zn atoms in the dendrite cell boundaries. The non-homogenized and homogenized strips were subsequently hot rolled. Their hot rolled sheets have much higher value of elongation with equivalent strength, compared to the hot rolled sheet of flat-bar extruded from DC ingot in the temperature ranging from 200°C to 300°C.