Nano-ZnO particles’ effect in improving the mechanical response of Mg-3Al-0.4Ce alloy

Abstract

Magnesium based nanocomposites, due to their excellent dimensional stability and mechanical integrity, have a lot of potential to replace the existing commercial Al alloys and steels used in aerospace and automotive applications. Mg-Al alloys are commercially used in the form of AZ (magnesium-aluminum-zinc) and AM (magnesium-aluminum-manganese) series in automobile components. However, the Mg 17 Al 12 phase in Mg-Al alloys is a low melting phase which results in a poor creep and high temperature performance of the alloys. Rare earth additions modify the phase and hence improve the properties of the materials. In this paper, Ce and nano ZnO particles were added to Mg-Al alloys to attain a favorable effect on their properties. The developed materials exhibited promising properties in terms of thermal expansion coefficient (CTE), hardness, and tensile strength. Further, the ZnO addition refined the microstructure and helped in obtaining a uniform distribution, however without grain size refinement. The increased addition of ZnO and the improvement in the distribution led to an enhancement in the properties, rendering the materials suitable for a wide spectrum of engineering applications. © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.