Early stages of precipitation in Mg-RE alloys studied by positron annihilation spectroscopy

Effect of long-term natural aging on the microstructural characteristics of an extruded WE54 alloy

“…Accordingly, the influence of thermomechanical processing and artificial aging on the microstructure especially the precipitation behaviour and mechanical properties are widely investigated in Mg-RE alloys to control their design with better properties [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Nevertheless, only a few investigations can be found in the literature dealing with the impact of natural aging on the hardening behaviour of Mg-RE alloys [16][17][18][19][20][21]. Age-hardening was noticed in binary Mg-15Gd and Mg-13Tb (wt.%) alloys during natural aging at room temperature for 1 month due to the clustering of solute atoms and vacancies [16].…”

“…Natural aging for 3 years leads to a reduction in the deformation structure and precipitation of the second phase in the as-extruded Mg-10Gd-2Y-0.8Zr (wt.%) alloy [17]. However, the evolution of grain structure and texture through natural aging is lacking since the investigations mentioned above were conducted at the atomic scale by using positron lifetime spectroscopy, high-angle annular dark field, or scanning transmission electron microscopy techniques [16][17][18][19][20]. For the first time, the present work presents the evolution of microstructure and texture of as-extruded WE54 (Mg-Y-Nd-Zr) alloy after long-term natural aging of 11 years using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique.…”