Hall-Petch relationship in Mg alloys: A review

Grain refinement could effectively enhance yield strength of Mg alloys according to the well-known Hall-Petch theory. For decades, many studies have been devoted to the factors influencing the Hall-Petch slope (k) in Mg alloys. Understanding the factors influencing k and their mechanisms could offer guidance to design and produce high-strength Mg alloys through effective grain refinement hardening. A review and comments of the past work on the factors influencing k in Mg alloys are presented. Results of these previous investigations demonstrate that the value of kin Mg alloys varies with texture, grain size, temperature and stain. The influence of texture and grain size on k is found to be an essential result of the variation of deformation mode on k value. Without the variation of deformation modes, it is revealed that texture could also impose a significant effect on k and this is also summarized and discussed in this paper. The reason for texture effect on k is analyzed based on the mechanism of Hall-Petch relationship. In addition, it is found in face-centered cubic (fcc) or body-centered cubic (bcc) metals that boundary parameters (boundary coherence, boundary energy and boundary diffusivity) could strengthen twinning or slips to a different extent. Therefore, the role of boundary parameters is also extended into the k values in Mg alloys and discussed in this paper. In the end, we discuss the future research perspective of Hall-Petch relationship in Mg alloys. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The editorial office of Journal of Materials Science & Technology.