The effects of high intensity ultrasonic melt treatment on the microstructure of magnesium alloys were investigated in this paper. Magnesium melts were treated with power ultrasonic wave and then cooled to a predetermined temperature. With the increase in ultrasonic power, the structure exhibited refined and spheroidzed crystal grains. After further increasing the ultrasonic power, the grains tended to somewhat coarsened. And increasing the ultrasonic processing time led to a grain refinement of magnesium alloy.

A novel way producing magnesium billets, LFEC (low frequency electromagnetic casting processing), was developed in Northeastern University in China. The high-quality magnesium billets with less macrosegregation, refined microstructure, and better surface quality were achieved because the temperature field and the flow pattern of magnesium DC casting were improved significantly after applying low frequency electromagnetic field. Extrusion is an important plastic deformation process for magnesium alloys. In this research, the magnesium billets from LFEC were extruded through a special designed die into sheets. The results of investigation on AZ31B indicated that the extrusion velocity has obvious effects on their microstructures and mechanical properties and the sheets from LFEC had finer microstructure and higher mechanical properties than that from conventional DC casting.

Electromagnetic Vibration Casting (EVC) is a new effective technical processing for optimizing solidification microstructures of light alloys. In this paper, this technology was induced into magnesium alloy DC casting for providing high-quality large diameter billets. The effects of vibration frequency and current intensities on the microstructures of large diameter billets were investigated. The results indicate that electromagnetic vibration would refine grains and the reduce macrosegregation effectively.