Microstructure and interfacial reactions of soldering magnesium alloy AZ31B

In this paper, economic and innoxious solder alloys with low melting temperature were designed for AZ31B. Their chemical composition and relevant parameters were investigated for a high-performance structure of bonding region. Results of microstructure observation showed that Zn-enriched phases disappeared and alpha-Mg existed in the joints in the form of coarse dendrites by increasing the concentration of Mg in the solder alloys. Water cooling with a high cooling rate was adopted in experiments. Experimental research showed that high cooling rate restricted the grains of a-Mg as the equiaxed dendrites, which was about 1/5 of the coarse dendrite but their number was more than 40-50 times. Both morphology with typical fracture and the analysis on X-ray diffraction fracture indicated that equiaxed dendrites significantly improved the mechanical property of the joints. Necking phenomenon occurred in the bonding region was in favor of the improvement of joint shear strength. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.