Rheoforming technologies for processing wrought Mg-alloys

The current applications of Mg in the automotive industry constitute almost 100% cast components without any significant contribution from wrought products. The main barriers to the penetration of wrought Mg-alloys into motor vehicles are poor deformability, low productivity and high cost. To overcome such barriers, a group of new processing technologies, collectively named rheoforming, have recently been developed by BCAST at Brunel University, for production of high quality wrought Mg-alloy products in various forms. The rheoforming technologies include DC rheocasting (DCRC), twin roll rheocasting (TRRC), and rheoextrusion (RE). The primary aim of rheoforming technologies is to achieve a cast body with fine and uniform microstructure, which is free from chemical segregation and cast defects. In this paper we present the rheoforming technologies and the experimental results on microstructure and mechanical properties of rheoformed wrought Mg-alloys.