EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

A single addition of the rare earth elements neodymium and yttrium have been made to mischmetal-free magnesium alloys Mg-3Nd and Mg-3Y. Both alloys were prepared by the means of powder metallurgy. A modern spark plasma sintering technique was used to effectively produced fully dense samples from gas-atomized powders. Two sintering temperatures – 450 °C and 550 °C and two external loads – 100 MPa and 25 MPa were used. The effect of the sintering parameters, particularly sintering temperature and external load, on mechanical and corrosion properties was investigated. The microstructure of all sintered samples was investigated by advanced microscopy techniques. Mechanical strength and corrosion properties were studied by microhardness measurement and linear polarization method at room temperature. The electrochemical testing medium was 0.1 M NaCl solution. It was shown that a superior combination of corrosion and mechanical properties was attained in the samples sintered at higher temperature and lower external load. Moreover, it was shown that a great variety of mechanical and corrosion characteristics can be obtained by altering the SPS parameters as so to fulfil case-specific requirements.