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1. Twinning in rolled AZ31B magnesium alloy under free-end torsion

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2020.140405  

   Carneiro, L. ; Culbertson, D. ; Yu, Q. ; Jiang, Y. ( January 2021 , Materials science engineering)

   null (Ed.)

   The mechanical response and microstructure evolution in a rolled AZ31B magnesium alloy were experimentally characterized using companion thin-walled tubular specimens under free-end monotonic torsion. The tubular specimens were made with their axes along the normal direction of the rolled magnesium plate. The shear stress-shear strain response shows a subtle sigmodal shape that is composed of four distinctive stages of strain hardening. Basal slips and tension twinning are operated throughout the shear deformation. Both tension twinning and compressing twinning are favored. Growth and interaction of tension twins with multiple variants lead to formation of twin-twin boundaries (TTBs). The collective hardening effects by twin boundary (TB) and TTB result in a unique rise of the strain hardening rate in Stage II and III. In addition to primary twins, tension-compression double twins and tension-compression-tension tertiary twins with detectable sizes are observed in the tension-twin favorable grains whereas compression-tension double twins are detected in the tension-twin unfavorable grains; all of which become more observable with the increasing shear strain. During Stage IV deformation where TTB formation exhausts, non-basal prismatic slips become more significant and are responsible for the progressive decrease in strain hardening rate in this stage. Swift effect, which is commonly observed in textured materials, is evidenced under free-end torsion. The origin of Swift effect is confirmed to be dislocation slips at a shear strain less than 5% but is predominantly due to tension twinning at a larger plastic strain. 

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2. Effects of initial {10-12} twins on cyclic deformation and fatigue of magnesium alloy at low strain amplitudes

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchar.2019.01.017  

   Wang, F. ; Lui, M. ; Sun, J. ; Feng, M. ; Jin, L. ; Dong, J. ; Jiang, Y. ( March 2019 , Materials characterization)

   An extruded AZ31B (Mg-3Al-1Zn-0.5Mn) magnesium alloy with a twin volume fraction of 60% was subjected to fully reversed strain-controlled tension-compression along the extrusion direction at strain amplitudes ranging from 0.23% to 0.45%. Dislocation slips were the dominant plastic deformation mechanisms without involving persistent twinning-detwinning. At an identical strain amplitude, the fatigue life of the pre-twinned alloy was much lower than that of the as-extruded alloy. Fatigue cracks were mainly initiated on the prismatic or prismatic-basal slip bands in the parent grains. The material volume reduction of the parent grains in the pre-twinned alloy enhanced fatigue damage. Twin cracks were not observed. 

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3. Effect of initial texture on fatigue properties of extruded ZK60 magnesium alloy

   https://doi.org/10.1111/ffe.12792  

   Xiong, Y. ; Gong, X. ; Jiang, Y. ( February 2018 , Fatigue & Fracture of Engineering Materials & Structures)

   The effect of initial texture on cyclic deformation behavior of extruded ZK60 magnesium (Mg) alloy was experimentally investigated under strain‐controlled loading with the strain amplitudes at 4%, 1%, and 0.35%. The testing specimens were taken from extrusion direction (ED), transverse direction (TD), and a material precompressed to 9.4% along the ED (ED_−9.4%). At a high strain amplitude of 4%, the cyclic deformation modes of ED and ED_−9.4%specimens are similar, and they experience twinning exhaustion → slip and detwinning exhaustion → slip during each loading cycle. At a medium strain amplitude of 1%, twinning‐detwinning is involved in the cyclic deformation, but different deformation mechanisms were observed in the 3 different specimens. Partial twinning‐complete detwinning mode dominates the cyclic deformation in the ED specimen, while partial detwinning‐retwinning mode occurs in the ED_−9.4%specimen. For the TD specimen, both basal slip andtension twinning occur during cyclic deformation. At a low strain amplitude of 0.35%, dislocation slips dominate the deformation for the ED specimen with a few observable tension twins. For the ED_−9.4%specimen, initially twined texture increases the ductility of the material and enhances fatigue life as compared with the other 2 specimens.

    

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4. Critical Shape for the Growth of Grain Boundary Twin Embryos in Mg and Mg Alloys: Crystal Plasticity Modeling

   https://doi.org/10.3390/alloys1020013  

   Su, Yanqing ; Arul Kumar, M. ; Beyerlein, Irene J. ( September 2022 , Alloys)

   Application of polycrystalline hexagonal close packed (HCP) metals in engineering designs has been constrained by their anisotropic responses due to twinning and limited plasticity. In deformation, twins most often initiate at grain boundaries (GBs), and thicken and propagate across the grain. In this work, the GB twin embryos in Mg and Mg alloys, and the conditions that influence their propagation are investigated. Using a micromechanical crystal plasticity model, the role of embryo shape on the driving forces prevailing at the embryo boundaries that could support its expansion is studied. The modeled embryos are either planar, extending more in the shear direction than normal to the twin plane, or equiaxed. Results show that the thinner the embryo, the greater the driving forces for both thickening and forward propagation. Alloys with low prismatic-to-basal critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) ratios promote embryo thickening and large CRSS values for the slip mode that primarily accommodates the twin shear encourage propagation. The neighboring grains with orientations that enable local accommodation of the embryo twin shear by pyramidal slip promote forward propagation but have little effect on thickening. When two like embryos lie along the same GB, their paired interaction promotes forward propagation but hinders thickening. 

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5. Why rolled Mg-Al-Ca-Mn alloys are less responsive to aging as compared to the extruded

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scriptamat.2023.115513  

   Bhattacharyya, J.J. ; Sasaki, T.T. ; Nakata, T. ; Agnew, S.R. ( August 2023 , Scripta Materialia)

   Dilute Mg-Al-Ca-Mn alloys exhibit excellent strength-ductility combinations in the peak-aged condition due to ordered, single atomic layer Guinier-Preston (GP) zones. The present work explains why rolled sheet material is softer and less responsive to aging, as compared to extruded. Using crystal-plasticity modeling, it is shown that the initial texture of the rolled material permits the soft modes, basal slip and twinning, to accommodate more of the strain during in-plane tension, and they are less responsive to hardening by the finely dispersed GP zones. Even with the same number density of GP zones, the extruded material is stronger in tension along the extrusion axis due to an initial texture which forces higher relative activity of prismatic slip, a mode previously shown to be strongly affected by the GP zones. The present work reemphasizes the significant role of the initial texture in determining the strength and anisotropy of non-cubic metals and alloys. 

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