Texture development and tensile properties of Mg–Yb binary alloys during hot extrusion and subsequent annealing

Ytterbium (Yb) containing magnesium alloys have aroused extensive interest due to their excellent mechanical properties after thermomechanical processing and heat treatment. Unfortunately, the sole effect of Yb addition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of pure Mg matrix remains uncertain to date. In this work, the effects of Yb concentration on the texture development and tensile properties of pure Mg matrix during hot extrusion and the subsequent annealing were systematically investigated. The results revealed that the constitutional supercooling induced by Yb addition refined the as-cast microstructure but exerted a negligible effect on the original columnar grain morphology. When extruded at 300 °C, the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) process was considerably retarded. The in-grain misorientation axes (IGMA) analysis combined with TEM observation indicated that non-basal slips operated with increasing Yb concentration. Specifically, the prismatic 〈a〉 slip should be robustly activated in Mg–1.0 Yb extrudate, promoting the formation of the texture with {10–10} plane normal to the extrusion direction (ED), while for the Mg–2.0 Yb counterpart, the increased activity of pyramidal 〈c + a〉 slip and the relaxation of basal/ dislocations generated an ED-tilted texture component. The preferential grain growth dominated the subsequent annealing texture development at 400 °C when a comparable grain size was achieved. An obvious ED-tilted texture intensity with the peak around 〈–12–13〉 was observed in Mg–2.0 Yb alloy, which was primarily caused by grains with the basal orientation vanished and with the non-basal orientations intensified due to a higher concentration of Yb solute. Favored by the grain refinement, the Mg–2.0 Yb extrudate exhibited a high tensile yield strength of 304 ± 3.5 MPa, while the subsequently annealed counterpart presented a favorable elongation to failure of 14.8 ± 1.2%, which mainly due to the homogeneous grain structure, weak ED-tilted texture, and dissolution of coarse phases after high-temperature annealing.