Longitudinal Seam Failure in Extruded AZ31 Alloy

Abstract

Research is currently being conducted on the feasibility of hydroforming extruded magnesium tubes to integrate multiple parts into a single hydroformed section. Among other applications, such sections would reduce the weight of both cars and planes, particularly when used in the vehicle frame. This would lead to either reduced fuel costs, or the ability to carry an increased payload. Magnesium generally has limited ductility, which in the case of the current extruded tubes is even further reduced at the extrusion seams. These are locations where the material flow separates and rejoins during extrusion and are unavoidable when a hollow profile die is used. When the tubes were stressed in a circumferential direction, tube ruptures consistently occurred along the extrusion seams of the tubes. This led to the current project, an inquiry into the exact cause of failure at these locations. The creation of irregularities at the seams, such as precipitate dispersions, local texture changes, grain size changes and entrained material, is discussed. These irregularities are considered together with their roles in producing the failures. The results are summarized and the most fruitful directions for future work are outlined.

Characterization of weld seam properties of extruded magnesium hollow profiles

“…Up to now, only few investigations on the formation of weld seams in magnesium hollow extrusions and its impact on the product properties are performed [3,8,9]. It is not known, if and how the local microstructure alteration in the weld seams influences the mechanical properties.…”