Microstructures and Hardness of Non-isothermal Deep Drawn AZ31 Magnesium

Sheets
Tyng-Bin Huang, and Yung-An Tsai
Department of Mechanical Engineering, St. John's University, R.O.C.
Abstract: The commercial FEM code MSC Superform was employed to simulate the deep drawing processes of AZ31
magnesium alloy in this study. The temperature and strain distributions of the deep drawn cups at various forming
temperatures were determined from simulations. Circular cup drawing experiments were performed to obtain the temperature
and thickness distributions of the drawn cups at various forming temperatures. Two surface thermocouples were used to
measure the temperature distributions of drawn cups. Thickness and temperature distributions obtained from experiments
were used to validate the FEM simulation results. The microstructure and mechanical property (Vickers Hardness) of deep
drawn cup with AZ31 magnesium alloy were conducted at various temperatures to investigate the effect of dynamic
recrystallization (DRX) on the hardness after drawn. The fine dynamically recrystallized grains are observed at forming
temperature higher than 200. The grain size becomes larger at higher forming temperature. The hardness of the drawn cup
becomes lower due to dynamic recrystallization which offset the effect of strain hardening
55mm
100

LDR
1.45

60mm 85mm
150 200

LDR
1.58

LDR
2.24

95mm
230

LDR
2.5

100mm 95mm
260
300

LDR
2.63

LDR
2.5

Drawn cup at various forming temperatures

non-isothermal deep drawing system

(A)

(B)

Hardness distribution of drawn cup forming at 200, strain

and temperature distribution just after forming by FEM
simulation
Optical microstructure
(D)area forming
(C) of drawn cup in flange
at (A) 150 (B) 200 (C) 260 (D) 300