Work Hardening and Latent Hardening of Mg Single Crystals under Uniaxial Deformation at 298K

Abstract

In this thesis, work hardening and latent hardening behaviours of pure Mg single crystals were mainly studied under uniaxial deformation tests at room temperature, 298K. By uniaxial tensile/compression tests, work hardening behaviours of Mg single crystals with different orientations favoured for single and double basal <a> slip, {10-12}<10-11> twin, 2nd order pyramidal <c+a> slip and basal <a> slip + {10-12}<10-11> twin were studied. In order to investigate latent hardening behaviours among slip and twin systems, the Jackson-Basinski type latent hardening experiments in Mg single crystals at room temperature have been carried out under different types of dislocation interactions, which included: (i) the self-interactions, (ii) the co-planar interactions on the basal plane, (iii) basal <a> slip / {10-12}<10-11> twin dislocation interactions, (iv) {10-12}<10-11> twin / basal <a> slip dislocation interactions and (v) basal <a> slip / 2nd order pyramidal <c+a> slip dislocation interactions. The microstructure and micro-texture of the deformed single crystals was observed by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and SEM/EBSD methods. In addition, micro- and nano-indentation measurements were performed on adjacent matrix and {10-12}<10-11> twin regions of deformed Mg single crystals and the hardness values were analyzed by the Oliver-Pharr method.

The results from the Ph.D. work provided framework for the discussion of the plastic flow in Mg single crystals and quantitative values for hardening parameters used in the crystal plasticity modelling.