High temperature creep behavior and effects of stacking fault energy in Mg-Y and Mg-Y-Zn dilute solid solution alloys

Compressive creep behavior of hot-rolled (40%) Mg-Y binary and Mg-Y-Zn ternary dilute solid solution alloys are investigated in this study. Creep strength is substantially improved by the addition of zinc. Activation Energy for creep in Mg-Y and Mg-Y-Zn alloys are around 200 kJ/mol at the temperature range from 480 to 570 K. These values are higher than the activation energy for self-diffusion coefficient in magnesium (135 kJ/mol). Many stacking faults, which are planar type defects are observed on the basal planes of the magnesium matrix in Mg-Y-Zn ternary alloys. TEM observation has been revealed that the non-basal α-dislocation slip is significantly activated by these alloys. The rate controlling mechanism of Mg-Y and Mg-Y-Zn dilute alloys are considered to the cross-slip or prismatic-slip controlled dislocation creep with high activation energy for creep, more than 1.5 times higher than the activation energy for creep controlled dislocation climb.