Microstructural effects on the spall properties of ECAE and SWAP magnesium alloys: AZ31B-4E and AMX602

The effects of microstructure on the spall properties of two magnesium alloys fabricated via Equal-Channel Angular Extrusion (ECAE) and Spinning Water Atomization Process (SWAP) were investigated. The Hugoniot Elastic Limit (HEL) for both AZ31B-4E and AMX602 magnesium alloys were found to be approximately 0.181±0.003 GPa and 0.187±0.012 GPa, respectively. The spall strengths extracted from the free surface velocity profiles were found to decrease by approximately 4% for AZ31B-4E between 1.7 GPa to 4.6 GPa shock stress. Although this reduction in spall strength may lie within the experimental error, the microstructure of the post-shocked magnesium alloy show that manganese intermetallic inclusions in the AZ31B-4E magnesium were perhaps responsible for the reduction in spall strength as a function of shock stress. On the contrary, the spall strength for AMX602 was found to be random for the same shock stress range studied. This random behavior of the AMX602 was likely due to the incomplete sintering during ...