Microstructure evolution of metals through thermo-mechanical processes (TMP), mechanical property of TMP samples, and small scale test samples

The goal of the research is to improve the mechanical properties of hard-to-deform metal alloys, such as Mg and Ti alloys, through thermo-mechanical processes. The emphasis has been put on the grain-refinements of the metal alloys through different processing routes. Many novel thermo-mechanical processing techniques have been developed and tested on metal materials. Alternate biaxial reverse corrugation (ABRC) process has been conducted on the ZK60 and Mg-Ga alloy. Angle die pressing and hot rolling has been conducted on Ti-6Al-4V alloy. Biaxial extrusion process has been conducted on Ti-6Al-4V, ZK60 alloys and various Mg-base alloys. The overall mechanical properties of processed metal alloys showed apparent improvement both in strength and ductility. Also, tensile tests have been done on small scale tensile samples (&sim400microm 2 in cross-sectional area) to examine the effect of size on the mechanical property of metal. The test results indicated that samples with small size have higher strength relative to the conventional large samples.