Abstract
The mechanical behavior and texture evolution of extruded AZ31 magnesium alloy during the axial tension-compression process at room temperature were simulated by a modified viscoplastic self-consistent model considering slip and twin plastic deformation mechanisms. On the basis of EBSD experiment and simulation, the mechanism of tension-compression asymmetry caused by different deformation mechanisms and the texture evolution in the process of plastic deformation were analyzed. Results show that basal slip is the main deformation mode in the early stage of axial tension deformation, but the orientation factor of basal slip is low and has a hard orientation, resulting in higher yield stress. With the increase in strain, prismatic slip becomes the main deformation mechanism, and the strain hardening rate is low, so the stress-strain curve is smooth. In the early stage of axial compression, tension twinning has a high activity due to its low critical shear stress, leading to lower yield stress. As the relative activity decreases rapidly with the tension twinning, the hardening rate increases at the same time. In the later stage, with the activation of compression twinning, its relative activity increases rapidly; the accumulated stress during plastic deformation can be released, and the hardening rate decreases. In addition, the less twin volume fraction in the ED direction was explained by the color and the twin trace of typical grain.
Science Press
Magnesium alloy has high specific strength, high specific stiffness, good damping performance, and good thermal conductivity, thus being an important choice for material application in the fields of automobile, communication, and military industr
At present, the most commonly used technical methods for analyzing material texture are X-ray diffraction (XRD) and electron back scattering diffraction (EBSD). However, the shortcomings of these two experimental methods are high cost of testing, difficulty of sample preparation, and long experimental period. Based on the common optical reflection method, Gaskey et a
Although VPSC models have been applied to AZ3
In physics, when the plastic behavior of two adjacent single crystals satisfying the conditions of geometric coordination and stress balance is determined, the plastic behavior of polycrystals can be described depending on the transformation from micro-physical quantity to macro-physical quantity. The VPSC model considers the interaction between grains in polycrystals and assumes that the grains are ellipsoid. It is included and buried deep in a homogeneous equivalent medium, and the model adopts the following rate-dependent continuous constitutive model equatio
(1) |
where denotes the critical shear stress; is the Schmid factor of the slip/twin system (s); and represent the normal direction (ND) of the slip/twin plane and the slip/twin direction, respectively; and are the strain and stress partial tensors, respectively; stands for the local shear rate acting on the slip system (s); represents the normalized coefficient; n is the rate sensitivity index; stands for the viscoplastic convention and can relate the macroscopic strain rate to the macroscopic deviatoric stress.
The critical shear stress is formed with the accumulation of shear amount in each grain. Therefore, the evolution rules can be described by the Voce hardening model:
(2) |
where is the cumulative shear of the grain, denotes the initial critical stress, stands for the initial hardening rate, refers to the saturation hardening rate, and and are the initial and extrapolated critical shear stresses of mechanisms, respectively. Fig.1 depicts the specific definitions.

In this study, predominant twin reorientation (PTR
The integral number of twins caused by all twin systems in all grains is called the cumulative twin integral number:
(3) |
Through superimposition of the twin fraction of each incremental step, the cumulative twin fraction is compared with the critical volume fraction caused by twins
(4) |
where is the effective twin crystal integral number, and and are material constants.
The initial material selected was a commercial extruded AZ31 magnesium alloy bar with a diameter of 40 mm. Tension and compression experiments were conducted in the extrusion direction (ED), as shown in

Fig.2 Schematic of samples (a), tension sample (b) and compression sample (c)

Fig.3 Tension and compression samples after fracture
The extrusion direction of magnesium alloy is expressed by ED, and the transverse and normal directions perpendicular to the extrusion direction are expressed by TD and ND, respectively. The inverse pole diagram of the three faces of the magnesium alloy was measured by EBSD technology and combined into a three-dimensional microstructure, as shown in

Fig.4 Initial state of MgAZ31 extruded bar: (a) three-dimensional microstructure, (b) inverse pole figure, (c) micro-texture from EBSD, and (d) macro-texture from XRD
Considering the complexity of the deformation mechanism of magnesium alloy, obtaining all parameters through a single loading experiment is difficult. In this study, the optimal hardening parameters of different deformation mechanisms were determined by fitting the axial tensile and compressive stress-strain curves along the ED, as shown in
show that at room temperature, the critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) of basal<a> sli

The VPSC model was used to simulate and predict the true stress-strain curve of the AZ31 magnesium alloy under axial tension and compression. Experimental and simulated results are shown in Fig.5. Notably, the AZ31 magnesium alloy exhibits serious axial tension-compression asymmetry. The axial tensile yield stress (144 MPa) is significantly higher than the axial compression stress (100 MPa), and the yield ratio is approximately 1.4. The strain hardening rate is asymmetrical. During axial compression, the strain hardening rate changes significantly, and the stress-strain curve is similar to an “S” shape. During axial tension, the strain hardening rate has small change, and the stress-strain curve changes gradually. The stress-strain curves predicted by the VPSC model are in good agreement with the experimental results which can accurately reflect the stress-strain characteristics of each stage in the axial tension and compression plastic deformation process.

Fig.6 shows the prediction results of relative activity of deformation mechanism in the axial tension and compression deformation along the ED. Fig.6a shows that during axial tension, the grain c-axis is subjected to compressive stress, the tensile twins are not easy to activate, and the relative activity is very small, which is less than 1%. Basal slip and prismatic slip play a dominant role in the entire deformation process. For extruded magnesium alloys, the {0002} basal plane of most grains tends to be parallel to the ED. At this time, the Schmid factor of the basal slip is low, which is in the hard orientation. Only when F/A reaches a high value, the base slip can be activated, resulting in a high yield strength of about 144 MPa during axial tensile process. With the increase in strain, the {0002} basal plane of most of the grains is basically parallel to the extrusion axis, and the basal slip is restrained. With the increase in stress value, the shear stress of non-basal slip reaches the CRSS. The dominant deformation mechanism changes from basal slip to prismatic<a> slip, the strain hardening rate is low, and the stress-strain curve is smooth, which is consistent with the results of Hutchinso

Fig.8 EBSD and boundary structure maps of axial tension (a, c)
and compression (b, d) at the strain of 0.08 along ED
and a small amount of {101} compressed twins can be observed, as shown by the black and white arrows, respec-tively. This phenomenon may be due to the non-uniformity of the initial texture and orientation (its c-axis is oriented to ED) of the grains in the initial extruded AZ31 magnesium alloy, which is clearly shown in the initial pole figure (

Fig.8 shows the EBSD and grain boundary structure maps of axial tension and compression at strain of 0.08 along the ED, in which the tension twin grain boundary is represented by a red solid line, and the compression twin grain boundary is represented by a blue solid line. Fig.8a shows that during axial tension, an appropriate amount of {102} tensile twins
Fig.7 shows the kernel average misorientation (KAM) and local misorientation distribution histogram of axial tension and compression at strain of 0.08 along the ED. The KAM map can be used to represent the local dislocation density and strain degree in the microstructur
To explain this phenomenon,

Fig.9 Typical EBSD map of grain Ma (a); predicted tension twin traces and tension twin macro Schmid factor distribution (b)
Fig.10 Grain boundary map and grain boundary misorientation map of axial tension (a) and compression (b) of ε=0.08 along the ED direction

Fig.10 shows the grain boundary map and grain boundary misorientation map of axial tension and compression of ε=0.08 along the ED, in which the large-angle grain boundaries (>15°) are represented by black lines, and the small-angle grain boundaries (2°<θ<15°) are represented by green lines. Fig.10a shows that during axial tension along the ED, two peaks appear in the range of <15° and 80°~90°, which represent small- angle grain boundaries and {102} tensile twins, respectively. Among them, the small-angle grain boundary peak is lower mainly due to the occurrence of twins, where the small-angle grain boundary absorption dislocation is transformed into a large-angle grain boundary. Fig.10b shows that during axial compression along the ED, small-angle grain boundaries with higher peaks appear mainly due to the large number of activations of basal slip and pyramidal slip, and small-angle grain boundaries form at the grain and twin boundarie

Table 2 shows the pole figure simulation results along the ED at strain of 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, and 0.08, and the experimental results at strain of 0.08 with axial tension and compression. A comparison between simulation and experimental results show that the simulation results can reasonably reflect the texture evolution law in tension and compression along the ED. During axial tension along the ED, as the strain increases, regardless of the deformation amount, the {0002} and {110} pole figures change slightly, and only the texture strength increases. However, the pole density of {100} prismatic texture shifts to the ED due to the high activity of prismatic slip. During axial compression along the ED, the high activity of the tensile twins leads to the rotation of the grain c-axis to ~90°, which makes the pole density of the {0002} basal texture shift to the positive and negative direction of ED and also causes the pole density of the {110} and {100} prismatic texture to shift to the TD gradually.
1) The axial tension and compression experiment of extruded AZ31 magnesium alloy at room temperature can be simulated based on the modified VPSC model. The mechanism of tension-compression asymmetry and the law of texture evolution are analyzed from the perspective of micro-deformation mechanism. The twin growth and fusion behavior of the specimen in the later stage of deformation result in a surface phenomenon, and wherein the twin volume fraction decreases due to the disappearance of twin boundaries.
2) At the initial stage of axial tension, the basal slip is the dominant deformation mechanism. At this time, the orientation factor is low and orientation is in a hard orientation, resulting in high axial tensile yield stress. As the strain increases, the shear stress of non-basal slip reaches the CRSS, the dominant deformation mechanism becomes prismatic<a> slip, the strain hardening rate is lower, and the stress-strain curve is smooth. During the axial compression process, the tensile twins with a low CRSS value are highly activated during the initial deformation, leading to a lower yield stress. As the strain increases, the relative activity of the tensile twin decreases rapidly, and the hardening rate increases at the same time. When the strain reaches about 12%, the accumulated stress during plastic deformation can be released and the hardening rate decreases due to the massive activation of the compression twin.
3) The main reason for the difference in texture evolution between axial compression and tension is that the high activity of the tensile twins leads to the rotation of the grain orientation during the axial compression, while the high activity of prismatic slip during the axial tension makes the crystal grains move slowly.
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