On the texture and grain growth in hot-deformed and annealed WE54 alloy

A WE54 (Mg-Y-Nd-Zr) magnesium alloy was subjected to uniaxial and plane strain compression at two temperatures (300 and 400 degrees C) and two strain rates (10(-4) and 10(-2) s(-1)). This processing resulted in a relative weakening of the initial strong basal texture of the as-received material. Contrarily to the conventional AZ31 alloy, the deformation texture was more or less insensitive to the processing parameters but depended strongly on the hot deformation type. Annealing treatments at 450 degrees C up to 7 days resulted in normal grain growth. The grain growth annealing caused dissolution of the precipitates that had developed during hot deformation at 300 degrees C. The grain growth kinetics can be described by D-n = D-R(n) + kt, where n was found to range between 6 and 11. A net randomization of the texture was evidenced for all the deformation conditions.