Effects of precipitate on the slip activity and plastic heterogeneity of Mg-11Y-5Gd-2Zn-0.5Zr (wt. %) during room temperature compression

To understand the effects of precipitate on the deformation mechanisms and plastic heterogeneity of a cast Mg–11Y-5Gd-2Zn-0.5Zr (wt.%) alloy, quantitative comparison studies were performed on the solid solution (T4) and peak-aged (T6) samples during room temperature compression based on slip trace analysis and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis. At 10% plastic strain: no twins were observed in both T4 and T6 samples; the dominant slip mode transitioned from 2^nd order pyramidal slip (34.1%) to basal slip (50.5%) after the T6 treatment, which indicated that the precipitate-hardening effect for pyramidal slip was stronger than that for basal slip. Substantial active slip systems (up to 40%) exhibited low normalized Schmid factors (<0.1), implying that local stress deviated from the globally applied stress. Compared to the T4 sample, a larger magnitude of geometrically necessary dislocation (GND) density was found in the T6 sample, which indicated that the precipitates enhanced the plastic heterogeneity in terms of GND density. Most of the high GND density areas were near grain boundaries (GBs), but they also appeared in grain interiors. Almost every near-GB area with larger GND density tended to follow the conditions: (1) large orientation discrepancy between neighborhood grains; (2) at least one grain exhibiting slip traces; (3) the GB with the X phase. The GBs where slip transfer occurs tended to exhibit a homogeneous GND density distribution.