Hot deformation behavior and finite element simulation of Mg–8.3Gd–4.4Y–1.5Zn–0.8Mn alloy

To study the hot deformation behavior of Mg–8.3Gd–4.4Y–1.5Zn–0.8Mn (wt%) alloy, hot compression tests were conducted using a Gleeble–3500 thermal simulator at temperatures ranging from 653 to 773 K, true strain rates of 0.001–1 s−1, and a deformation degree of 60%. Results of hot compression experiments show that the flow stress of the alloy increases with the strain rate. The true stress–true strain curves are corrected by correcting the effect of temperature rise in the deformation process. Activation energy, Q, equal to 287380 J/mol and material constant, n, equal to 4.59 were calculated by fitting the true stress–true strain curves. Then, the constitutive equation was established and verified via finite element simulation. Results of the hot processing map show that the probability of material instability increases with the degree of deformation, which indicates that the material is not suitable for large deformation in a single pass. On the whole, the alloy is appropriate for multipass processing with small deformation and a suitable processing temperature and strain rate are 733 K and 0.01 s−1, respectively.