Improvement of high temperature fatigue lifetime in AZ91 magnesium alloy by heat treatment

In the present paper, an improvement in high temperature fatigue properties of the AZ91 magnesium alloy with rare earth elements has been obtained by a typical heat treatment, denoted by T6. For this objective, out-of-phase thermo-mechanical fatigue, room temperature and high temperature low cycle fatigue tests are performed to compare lifetimes. Several rare earth elements are initially added to the AZ91 alloy during a gravity casting process in permanent molds. Also, the type of the heat treatment is examined. Results of specimens with only the solution (the T4 heat treatment) and the solution with the ageing process (the T6 heat treatment) are compared under isothermal fatigue loadings. Microstructural investigations are carried out, before and after fatigue experiments to demonstrate the heat treatment effect. Results showed that both low cycle fatigue and thermo-mechanical fatigue of the alloy at high temperatures increases tremendously after the T6 heat treatment. This behavior attributes to the variation of the ductility, which was a result of microstructural changes during the heat treatment and the varying temperature in fatigue tests.