Both the addition of 0.6% Sc and simultaneous addition of 0.2% Sc and 0.1% Zr exerted a remarkable effect on grain refinement of as-cast Al–Mg alloys, changing typical dendritic microstructure into fine equiaxed grains. Such effect was found to be related to the formation of primary particles, which acted as heterogeneous nucleation sites for α-Al matrix during solidification. Primary particles formed in Al–Mg–Sc–Zr alloy could be identified as the eutectic structure consisting of multilayer of ‘Al3(Sc,Zr) + α-Al + Al3(Sc,Zr)’, with a ‘cellular-dendritic’ mode of growth. In addition, an attractive comprehensive property of as-cast Al–5Mg alloy due to the addition of 0.2% Sc and 0.1% Zr was obtained.
In this work, the effect of friction stir processing (FSP) on microstructure and mechanical properties of an Al-5Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr alloy was investigated in detail. The results showed that the as-cast alloy exhibited equiaxed grain structure with a large number of primary Al3(Sc,Zr) particles inside. FSP imposed a significant grain-refining effect on the alloy, changing the average grain size of 50.5 μm to 2.4 μm, which is attributed to the occurrence of dynamic recrystallization and generation of nanoscaled Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitates. These Al3(Sc,Zr) dispersoids intense impeded the movement of dislocation and grain boundaries and hindered the growth of recrystallized grains, resulting in a remarkable grain-refining strengthening, substructure strengthening and precipitation strengthening effect. On the other hand, the residual primary Al3(Sc,Zr) particles gave rise to a loss in ductility.
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