Modelling the Effect of Deformation on Discontinuous Precipitation in Magnesium—Aluminium Alloy

Magnesium–Aluminium alloys can decompose from a supersaturated solid solution by either continuous or discontinuous precipitation. Deformation prior to precipitation has been shown to strongly suppress the discontinuous precipitation mode and promote continuous precipitation. In this work, a model is used to explore the interaction between deformation and precipitation in the Mg–Al system. It has been shown that accelerated nucleation of continuous precipitates on dislocations is predicted to have the dominant effect in suppressing discontinuous precipitation by reducing the solute supersaturation. A secondary effect is the direct role played by twins in the deformed structure, which act as impenetrable barriers to discontinuous precipitate growth. However, even in the deformed case, small regions of discontinuous precipitation are still observed. It is proposed that this is due to the high level of strain concentration expected in the grain boundary regions, which provides a locally enhanced driving force for the migration of grain boundaries such that limited discontinuous precipitation occurs before continuous precipitation becomes established.