In order to obtain fine-microstructure magnesium alloys with superior mechanical properties, AZ61 alloy was processed by friction stir processing(FSP) combined with rapid heat sink. It is found that ultrafine-grained microstructure with average size less than 300 nm is observed in the resultant AZ61 alloy. The mean microhardness of the ultra-fine region reaches Hv120-130, two times higher than that of AZ61 substrate. All these results demonstrate clearly that under a cooling rate high enough, ultra-fine structure inAZ61 alloy with superior mechanical properties can be produced by one pass FSP via dynamic recrystallization.
Despite their interesting properties,nanostructured materials have found limited use as a result of the cost of preparation and the difficulty in scaling up.Herein,a two-pass friction stir processing(FSP)technique is employed to refine grain sizes to a nanoscale.Nanocrystalline AZ61 Mg alloy with an av-erage grain size of less than 100nm was successfully obtained using FSP.Corresponding to this,the highest microhardness of the nano-grained region reached triple times that of AZ61 substrate.In prin-ciple,by applying multiple overlapping passes,it should be possible to produce any desired size thin sheet of nanostructure using this technique.We expect that the FSP technique may pave a way to large-scale structural applications of nanostructured metals and alloys.
