Influence of Severe Metal Forming Processes on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Mg alloys

The magnesium alloys are considered as biodegradable implant materials due to its biocompatibility and mechanical properties. The light weight structure also made it more demanding in industries such as automobile and aerospace. The other properties which made magnesium more versatile are its strength to weight ratio, ductility and corrosion resistance. In this review article, Mg alloys is considered to understand the change in microstructure after various severe plastic deformation (SPD). Various SPD such as rolling, friction stir processing (FSP), equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) and high pressure torsion (HPT) are used to understand the modification of microstructure. The influence of microstructure change is explained in terms of change in mechanical properties. It is observed that the alteration of microstructure by SPD can enhance the mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. The enhancement in mechanical properties after severe deformation is observed due to the existence of various strengthening mechanism such as grain refinement, dynamic re-crystallisation, grain boundary strengthening, dispersion of micro/nano precipitate of second phase and improvement in dislocation strengthening. Additionally, crystallographic texture helps to improve the mechanical properties after severe plastic deformation in Mg alloys.