Progress in Natural Science: Materials International 27 (2017) 695–702

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Original Research

Effects of Sn addition on microstructure and mechanical properties of Mg- T

Zn-Al alloys
⁎
Bo Wanga,b, Xianhua Chena,b, , Fusheng Pana,b, Jianjun Maoa,b
a
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China
b
National Engineering Research Center for Magnesium Alloys, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The effects of Sn addition (0, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 3 wt%) on microstructure of Mg-4Zn-1.5Al alloy in cast and
Magnesium alloys extruded states were investigated, and the mechanical properties of as-extruded Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn studied. The
Sn addition experimental results showed that the as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al alloy was composed of two phases α-Mg and Mg32
Microstructure (Al, Zn) 49, while Sn-containing alloys consisted of α-Mg, Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 and Mg2Sn phases, and Mg32 (Al, Zn)49
Texture
was not detected after extruding due to that the most of them dissolved into the matrix during the homogenized
Mechanical properties
treatment. The addition of Sn refined the grains of as-cast and as-extruded Mg-Zn-Al alloys obviously. It was
noted that the basal texture intensity reduced with increasing Sn content significantly in as-extruded Mg-Zn-Al
alloys. The tensile tests results indicated that Sn addition improve the tensile strength of the extruded alloys,
while it had a harmful effect on the ductility. When the addition of Sn was 2 wt%, the ultimate tensile strength
(UTS), yield strength (YS) and elongation (εf) of the alloy were 280 MPa, 147 MPa and 17.4%, respectively.

1. Introduction Xiao et al. [14] investigated the effect of Sn on microstructure and

Magnesium and its alloys have attracted much more attention due
to their low density, high specific strength and stiffness [1,2]. Besides, it
shows an excellent combination of high damping ration and electro-
magnetic shielding characteristics [3,4]. Therefore, it has been con-
sidered as promising materials used in automobile and aerospace in-
dustries and other fields. However, it is not applied widely as compared
to aluminum alloys and steel because of their relatively low strength
and poor plasticity as well as high cost [5,6]. Great efforts have been
made to improve the mechanical properties of magnesium alloy both at
room and elevated temperature [7–11].
As we all known, mechanical properties of magnesium alloy can be
improved by alloying techniques significantly due to forming different
precipitates and fine grains [12,13]. Recently, there is an increasing
interest in Mg-Sn system because of its low cost and having the po-
tential to develop high performance both at room and elevated tem-
peratures [14,15]. The solubility of Sn in α-Mg solid solution drops
sharply from 14.85% at the eutectic transformation temperature of
561 °C to 0.45% at 200 °C. Mg2Sn is an equilibrium intermetallic phase
in Mg-Sn binary phase diagram, and the melting temperature as high as
770 °C. Therefore, the mechanical properties of these alloys can be
improved by aging both at room temperature and high temperature.
mechanical properties of as-cast and as-aged ZA75 alloy. The results
showed that as-cast and as-aged ZAT752 exhibited excellent mechan-
ical properties due to the continuous eutectic phase by solution treat-
ment and numerous Mg2Sn and Mg32 (Al, Zn) 49 precipitations during
aging treatment. Yang et al. [16] studied as-cast ZA84 alloy with Sn and
showed that 0.5–2 wt% Sn addition can refine Mg32 (Al, Zn) 49 phase
and suppress the formation of Mg32 (Al, Zn) 49 phase and ZAT842
showed the best yield strength and creep properties. Park et al. [13]
found that addition of 4 wt% Sn into as-extruded AZ82 alloy can im-
prove the tensile and compressive properties obviously by forming fine
dynamic recrystallized grains and Mg2Sn precipitates. However, most
of researches are focused on cast or extruded magnesium alloy rods, few
of studies paid attention to as-extruded Mg-Zn-Al-Sn alloy sheets.
Therefore, it is very necessary to investigate the effects of Sn addition
on microstructure and mechanical properties of as-extruded Mg-Zn-Al
alloy sheets.
In the present wok, the microstructural characteristics, texture and
mechanical properties of as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn (x = 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3)
alloys and as-extruded sheets were studied systematically. The main
purpose of this study is to find the optimal Sn content for Mg-Zn-Al
based alloy system and clarify the corresponding mechanisms. The re-
sults will be helpful for the future development of magnesium alloy

Peer review under responsibility of Chinese Materials Research Society.

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: xhchen@cqu.edu.cn (X. Chen), 278038694@qq.com (J. Mao).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnsc.2017.11.002
Received 23 May 2017; Received in revised form 5 November 2017; Accepted 6 November 2017
Available online 06 December 2017
1002-0071/ © 2017 Chinese Materials Research Society. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
B. Wang et al. Progress in Natural Science: Materials International 27 (2017) 695–702

Table 1
Chemical composition of the experimental alloys (wt%).

Alloy Nominal composition Analyzed composition

Zn Al Sn Mg

ZAT420 Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-0Sn 4.00 1.51 0 Bal.

ZAT420.5 Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-0.5Sn 4.00 1.52 0.52 Bal.
ZAT421 Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-1Sn 4.00 1.50 1.03 Bal.
ZAT422 Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-2Sn 4.01 1.51 2.00 Bal.
ZAT423 Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-3Sn 4.05 1.50 3.00 Bal.

sheets with high performance and low cost.

2. Experimental procedures

Mg-4Zn-1.5Al (ZA42) based alloys with different Sn contents were

prepared from Mg (99.95 wt%), Zn (99.99 wt%), Al (99.95 wt%) and
Sn (99.95 wt%). The stuffs were melted at 740 °C in an electric re-
sistance furnace under the protection of protective atmosphere (2 vol%
SF6 and 98 vol% CO2). The melt was agitated for 10 min, held at 720 °C
for 30 min, and cast into the steel mold preheated to about 200 °C. The
compositions of the ingots were analyzed by inductively coupled
plasma emission spectrometer (ICP) and the results are listed in Table 1.
The cast ingots were heat treated at 340 °C for 5 h then at 420 °C for
20 h to homogenize followed by air cooled. The continuous heating
solution treatment is necessary to dissolve the alloying elements in α-
Mg matrix completely. The alloys were then extruded at 300 °C and the
sheet extrusion ratio is 11:1. Before extrusion, the ingots and mold were
preheated at 300 °C for 2 h. The extrusion speed was about 20 mm/s
and the extruded sheets obtained is 8 × 125 mm2.
The metallographic samples were cut from the same position of each
ingot. Thermal analysis was carried out by using differential scanning
calorimetry (DSC) and the heating curves were recorded at controlled
speed of 10 K/min from 273 K to 973 K. Phase analysis and macro-
texture were performed with a Rigaku D/MAX-2500PC X-ray dif-
fractometer (XRD) using a Cu Kα X-ray source with incidence beam
angle of 2°. The diffraction scanning angle ranges from 10° to 90° at a
scanning rate of 0.03°/s. Texture measurement was conducted on the
midsections parallel to extrusion direction (ED). As-cast samples for
microstructure observations were etched in a solution of 1 g picric acid,
3 ml acetic acid, 10 ml water and 25 ml ethanol. As-extruded samples
were etched with a mixture of 2.5 g picric acid, 3 ml acetic acid, 4 ml
water and 20 ml ethanol. The microstructures were characterized by
optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM,
TESCAN VEGA II LMU) using an accelerating voltage of 20 kV which
equipped with energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), and transmission
electron microscopy (TEM). The size of grain in the alloys was counted
by the image-pro-plus software. Tensile testing was carried out on a
CMT5105 material test machine at a strain rate of 10−3 s−1 at room
temperature (RT). The extruded sheets were machined into tensile
specimens of 10 mm gauge diameter and 25 mm gauge length. The
tensile direction is parallel to ED. The 0.2% yield strength, ultimate
tensile strength and elongation to failure were averaged of at least three
specimens.
Fig. 1. XRD patterns of as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys.
peaks are easily detected in as-cast ZAT423 alloy. There is no diffrac-
tion peaks for Mg2Sn as the addition of Sn is less than 2%, the reason is
that most of Sn atoms are solutionized into α-Mg matrix during soli-
dification. According to Park [11], Mg2Sn can be found as the addition
of Sn is above 2%, which is well in agreement with our results. Gen-
erally speaking, the difficult degree in forming intermetallic compounds
can be estimated by the electronegative difference between different
elements. The higher difference of the electronegative, the more easily
intermetallic compounds form. The electronegative values of Mg, Al,
Zn, and Sn are 1.31, 1.61, 1.65, and 1.96, respectively. It is notable that
the difference between Mg and Sn is the largest among binary systems
and also Mg2Sn is easily formed in Sn-containing experimental alloys,
which is corresponding with Mg-Al-Sn, Mg-Zn-Sn and Mg-Zn-Al ternary
equilibrium phase diagrams [16,17]. According to ternary Mg-Al-Zn
equilibrium phase diagrams, the phase of the as-cast alloy mainly de-
pends on the mass ratio of Al to Zn. β-Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 existed in Mg-Al-
Zn alloy as the ratio was less than 3. According to Table 1, the mass
ratio of Al to Zn was about 0.4. Therefore, the diffraction peaks for β-
Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 can be seen clearly from Fig. 1.
DSC curves of as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys are shown in Fig. 2.
There are two endothermic peaks in all of the five alloys: one is around
337 °C, the other is around 620 °C. Based on the ternary Mg-Zn-Al, Mg-
Zn-Sn and Mg-Al-Sn equilibrium phase diagrams, and the reports from
the literature [18–22], it can be deduced that the following eutectics
reaction: L → α-Mg + Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 will happen as the weight ratio
of Zn to Al is equal to 2.7 at 337 °C. Therefore, the first peak (around
337 °C) corresponds to the dissolution of Mg32 (Al, Zn)49. It is well

3. Results and discussion

3.1. As-cast microstructure

Fig. 1 illustrates XRD patterns of as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys. It

can be seen that the phase composition of ZAT420 alloy contains α-Mg
and β-Mg32 (Al, Zn)49. Compared with Sn-free ZAT420 alloy, no other
phases can be detected except for Mg2Sn in the Sn-containing alloys.
The diffraction peaks of Mg2Sn are not obvious as the addition of Sn is
Fig. 2. DSC heating temperature curves of as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys.
less than 2 wt%. As the Sn addition is added to 3%, Mg2Sn diffraction

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Fig. 3. Optical images showing the microstructures of as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys. (a) ZAT420, (b) ZAT420.5, (c) ZAT421, (d) ZAT422, (e) ZAT423.

Fig. 4. SEM images of as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys (a) ZAT420, (b) ZAT420.5, (c) ZAT421, (d) ZAT422, and (e) ZAT423.

consistent with the results from XRD in Fig. 1. The second peak (around
620 °C) is the melting temperature of the α-Mg matrix. The DSC scan
results imply that the addition of Sn to ZA42 alloy has no influence on
the low temperature eutectic phase transformation. There is no obvious
peak for Mg2Sn transformation found in the DSC curves, which may
result from that the quantity of Mg2Sn particles is not enough for scan
detection in the Sn-containing alloys. This is also corresponded with the
results from XRD in Fig. 1.
Fig. 3 shows the optical microstructure of as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn
alloys. All the as-cast alloys show typical dendritic structure with α-Mg
matrix and a large amount of intermetallic compounds distributed
along the dendritic boundaries. It is found that the addition of Sn has an
obvious effect on grain size, the morphology and the volume percentage
of secondary phases. After adding Sn, the grain size decreases and the
number of secondary phases increase to a certain degree. It can be seen
clearly from Fig. 4, typical SEM images of as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn
alloys. It reveals that all the experimental alloys are characteristic of
divorced eutectic and the more addition of Sn, the more secondary
phases and more continuous of secondary phases. Expect that, most of
secondary phases are distributed in the vicinity of grain and dendritic
boundaries, which can be seen from Fig. 5 clearly. Fig. 5 shows high-
magnification SEM micrographs of as-cast ZAT422 alloy. As shown in
Fig. 5, two types of intermetallic compounds are observed in the alloy:
the bright block compound (marked as B) and the net-liked compound

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Fig. 6. Optical micrographs of as-extruded Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys (a)ZAT420, (b) ZAT420.5, (c) ZAT421, (d) ZAT422, and (e) ZAT423.
(marked as C and D). Most of the compounds are all mixed with each
other. A is mainly composed of Mg, B mainly consists of Mg and Sn
elements, with the atomic ration of Mg to Sn is approximately 2, C and
D are rich in Mg, Zn and Al, other than Sn, with the atomic ration of Mg
to Zn and Al is approximately 1. Combining with Fig. 1 and Fig. 5, B
with bright particles and bright block compounds mostly mixing with
the continuous eutectic phases can also be observed in as-cast ZAT422
alloy, which are identified as Mg2Sn phase. Both the isolated and
continuous net-liked phases marked as C and D are correspond to β-
Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 phase with trace Sn content. And A is α-Mg matrix.
As mentioned above, the addition of Sn plays an important role in
grain refinement and distribution of inter-dendritic intermetallic com-
pounds, and also makes a contribution to the precipitation of secondary
phases. Based on the observations from Figs. 3 and 4, the grain size
decreases and the secondary phase amount increases with increasing Sn
content. It is also evident that ZAT422 alloy exhibits the optimal re-
finement and uniform distribution of the inter-dendritic intermetallic
compounds. However, the grains become larger and the inter-dendritic
intermetallic compounds get coarser as the Sn addition is up to 3 wt%.
Based on electronegative values of Mg, Al, Zn, and Sn, Mg2Sn has
higher thermal stability as compared to Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 and can inhibit
the formation and growth of Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 phase. Yang et al. [16]
found that Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 phase could be refined by forming Mg2Sn,
which influenced the diffusion kinetics of Al and Mg atoms. Dong et al.
[23] deduced that Sn added to the AZ64 alloy had an effective influence
on promoting the solute enrichment of Al and Zn at the solid-liquid
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Progress in Natural Science: Materials International 27 (2017) 695–702
Fig. 5. SEM image and EDS results of as-cast
ZAT422 alloy.
interface during solidification. Consequently, the refined cast micro-
structure in the Sn-containing should be related to that Sn addition
induces excessive constitutional supercooling during solidification and
suppresses the formation and growth of Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 intermetallic
phase due to the precipitation of Mg2Sn phase.
3.2. As-extruded microstructure
The optical microstructure of as-extruded Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys
taken from the parallel plane to the extrusion direction (ED) is shown in
Fig. 6. Comparing with as-cast alloys (Fig. 3), the grains are refined
obviously, especially in Fig. 6d. With increasing of Sn addition, grain
size decreases, especially along ED. The grain sizes of ZAT420,
ZAT420.5, ZAT421, ZAT422 and ZAT423 are 27 µm，22 µm，22 µm，
16 µm, and 21 µm, respectively. It indicates that the addition of
0.5–2 wt% Sn can lead to grain refinement in a certain degree. How-
ever, the grain size exhibits the increasing tendency as the addition of
Sn is above 2%, as shown in Fig. 6e. Fig. 7 illustrates the SEM images of
as-extruded Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys. There are some small grains
around the large grains obviously, which means that the process of
dynamic recrystallization is not completely. And numerous fine parti-
cles are distributed along grain boundaries and within the grain inter-
iors, but most of them are on the grain boundaries along the extrusion
direction. And the more fine particles, the finer grain size. It means that
these fine particles play an important role in restricting dynamic re-
crystallization grain growth by pinning effect. According to the
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Fig. 7. SEM images of as-extruded Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys (a) ZAT420, (b) ZAT420.5, (c) ZAT421, (d) ZAT422, (e)ZAT423.

following XRD and TEM results in Figs. 8 and 9, the bright particles are
Mg2Sn phases.
From Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, the Sn addition can refine the grains effec-
tively, which is quite well consistent with the as-cast Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn
alloys. And all the extruded alloys exhibit dynamic recrystallized mi-
crostructure with fine and relatively coarse dynamic recrystallized
grains. It implies that there is dynamic recrystallization occurring but
not completely during the extrusion process. The fine-grains are attri-
butable to dynamic recrystallization area and the coarse grains are the
dynamic unrecrystallized region during the extrusion at 300 °C.
Therefore, it can be deduced that Mg2Sn precipitates play an important
role in achieving a fine-grained structure in as-extruded Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-
xSn alloys. Actually, similar phenomenon has been detected by Sasaki
et al. [24]. The Mg2Sn phase is formed by adding Sn, which in large size
as a primary phase. And the Mg2Sn particles in large size have been
broken along the extrusion direction during extrusion process. The
broken Mg2Sn particles are able to be acted as the heterogeneous nu-
cleation sites for recrystallized grains. Besides, the refined cast micro-
structure is important for the dynamic recrystallized microstructure, Fig. 8. XRD patterns of as-extruded Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys.
because the grain boundaries can act as the heterogeneous nucleation
sites for recrystallized grains. However, the growth of recrystallized
grains can also be inhibited by Mg2Sn. This is because that the motion 2%. Compared with the as-cast alloys, Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 phase disappears
of grain boundary will be hindered by Mg2Sn particles, which are dis- in the as-extruded alloys. It may be attributed to that most of Mg 32 (Al,
tributed in the vicinity of grain boundaries [24–27]. In other words, the Zn)49 phases are dissolved into α-Mg matrix during the homogenized
dynamic recrystallization may be promoted by Mg2Sn particles along treatment and the quantity of Mg32 (Al, Zn)49 phase particles are so
extrusion direction and thus the grains are refined obviously in Mg-4Zn- small that XRD can’t detect them. As seen from Fig. 7a, there is some
1.5Al-xSn alloys. fine particles are distributed along the grain boundaries, combined with
The XRD patterns of as-extruded Mg-4Zn-1.5Al-xSn alloys are Fig. 8a, there is only α-Mg in ZAT420 alloy. It can be deduced that the
shown in Fig. 8. As can be seen from Fig. 8, the phase of ZAT420 is only fine particles are the Mg-Zn phase. In order to precisely identify the
composed of α-Mg. However, the diffraction peaks for Mg2Sn phase precipitates, further TEM study was conducted in as-extruded ZAT422
only can be detected in ZAT423 alloy. The ZAT423 alloy consists of α- alloy.
Mg and Mg2Sn. As the addition of Sn is less than 2%, the as-extruded Fig. 9 presents TEM images of the precipitates in as-extruded
alloys only consist of α-Mg, and there is no Mg2Sn phase. The reason is ZAT422 alloy. The extruded ZAT422 alloy shows three kinds of pre-
that the maximum solubility of Sn at 420 °C is about 2.85%. Therefore, cipitates morphologies (Fig. 9a): the typical long and short rod-liked
there are no Mg2Sn diffraction peaks as the addition of Sn is less than precipitates (marked as A and C) and some spherical shaped

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precipitates (marked as B). The size of these rods ranges from 50 nm to
120 nm in length and their growth direction is parallel to < 01–11 >
directions. The spherical shaped precipitates are approximately 25 nm
in diameter and their growth direction is also aligned to < 01–11 >
directions. According to the results from EDS analysis, these long and
short rod-liked precipitates should be Mg-Zn phases, and the spherical-
liked precipitates may be Mg2Sn phase. The further analysis is shown in
Fig. 9c-f. As we all known, Mg2Sn is the face-center cubic phase
(a=0.674 nm) with the space group Fm3m. The SAED pattern of the
spherical shaped phase (marked as D) in Fig. 9d is consistent with that
of Mg2Sn phase, and thus the precipitate D should be identified as
Mg2Sn. Mg2Sn phase has the orientation relationship with α-Mg matrix
as follows: (0002) Mg/ (−3–11) Mg2Sn, and [01−11] Mg/ [2–33] Mg2Sn.
From Fig. 9e and f, the rod precipitate E can be identified as Mg-Zn
phase. Mg-Zn phase is parallel to < 01–11 > directions of α-Mg matrix.
For the further calculations from FFT pattern in Fig. 9f, and combined
with the reports by Wei [28] and Gao [29], Mg-Zn phase might be β1'-
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Progress in Natural Science: Materials International 27 (2017) 695–702
Fig. 9. (a) Bright field TEM images of as-extruded ZAT422 alloy
taken from [0111] zone axe, (b) Selected area electron diffraction
(SAED) of α-Mg matrix, (c) Bright field TEM image of spherical-
shaped precipitate, (d) SAED of Mg2Sn precipitate, (e) HREM
image of rod-shaped precipitate in ZAT422 alloy, (f) FFT pattern
obtained from the rod-shaped precipitate.
Mg4Zn7. However, Mg-Zn phase can’t be detected from the XRD pat-
terns, which should result from that the Mg-Zn precipitates are very
few.
3.3. Texture
The pole figures of {0002} plane // ED showing the textures of as-
extruded ZAT42x alloys with different Sn contents are shown in Fig. 10.
Texture feature is influenced by the addition of Sn obviously. In
Fig. 10a, the peak intensity is at the center of the {0002} pole figure,
indicating a strong basal texture. In Fig. 10b and Fig. 10c, the peak
intensity regions deviated from the center of the pole figures and the
peaks tend to split, especially in Fig. 10c. It indicates that the basal
texture of the wrought ZAT42x alloy appears to become weaker as the
addition of Sn increases. From ZAT420 to ZAT422, the value of the
maximum intensity of basal texture reduces notably, from 23.1 to 5.2,
which indicates that basal texture can be weakened by adding Sn
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Fig. 10. Pole figures of (0002) plane showing the textures of as-extruded ZAT42x alloys
with different Sn contents: (a) ZAT420, (b) ZAT420.5, and (c) ZAT422.
significantly. With increasing Sn content, basal texture gets increasingly
dispersed. Generally speaking, the intensity of the texture can be in-
fluenced by grain size, alloying elements, deformation temperature and
so on [1,22,24,27]. In our present study, the reasons for the basal
texture weakening may originate from the following two effects. On the
one hand, with increasing Sn content, the grain size of ZAT42x de-
creases gradually in the extruded state. The smaller grain size is ben-
eficial for weakening basal texture. On the other hand, the dynamic
recrystallization process is more complete with the increase of Sn ad-
dition. It is generally known that dynamic recrystallization will result in
texture weakening and grain refinement. Improved plastic formability
is expected in the Sn-containing alloys with weakened basal texture.
3.4. Mechanical properties
The typical tensile engineering stress-strain curves of as-extruded
ZAT42x alloys at room temperature are shown in Fig. 11a, and their
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Progress in Natural Science: Materials International 27 (2017) 695–702
respective values are given in Fig. 11b. It reveals that the addition of Sn
can improve both yield strength and ultimate tensile strength. In the
contrary, the elongation decreases into a certain degree. With in-
creasing of Sn, both YS and UTS increase, except for the elongation.
When Sn content increases from 0 to 2 wt%, UTS is enhanced from
263 MPa to 280 MPa and YS is improved from 125 MPa to 148 MPa,
while the elongation is reduced from 27% to 17%. However, excessive
Sn addition results in the decrease of YS and UTS values except for the
elongation. The UTS, YS and εf are 270 MPa, 148 MPa and 21%, re-
spectively. This is because the coarsening effect of Mg2Sn precipitates
and grain size. The excessive Sn addition results in the coarsening of
Mg2Sn precipitates and grain size, which are harmful for the mechan-
ical properties. It is obvious that the amount of Sn to ZA42 alloy should
be limited within a certain range to achieve the maximum strength-
ening effect by grain refinement and an increase in the fine precipitates
while suppressing the formation of excessively large undissolved Mg2Sn
phase simultaneously. The improvement of mechanical strength can be
mainly summarized in the following two aspects. On the one hand, the
addition of Sn can give rise to the decrease of grain size. According to
the Hall-Petch relation: σy∝d−1/2, grain size d plays an important role
in improving the tensile strength. The smaller of grain size, the better of
mechanical properties. The refined grains prevent the motion of dis-
locations to increase the strength, and the slip systems can be changed
by the blocked dislocations, resulting in cross slip to maintain good
ductility. And Ma [30] found that lower basal texture intensity tends to
enhance the strength. As shown in Fig. 6, ZAT422 alloy has the smallest
grain size among these alloys, and also with the minimum basal texture
in Fig. 10, which is consistent with the highest strength obtained in
ZAT422 alloy. On the other hand, Mg2Sn precipitates are the effective
barriers to dislocation motion and grain boundary sliding, so they play
an important role in precipitation strengthening effect. With the in-
crease of Sn addition, the Mg2Sn precipitates increase, which can be
seen from Fig. 6, Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 clearly, especially for ZAT423 alloy.
In addition, there are many rod-liked Mg-Zn phase in a-Mg matrix from
Fig. 9, numerous Mg-Zn phase are dissolved into the α-Mg matrix, and
the massive precipitations of Mg2Sn can improve effect of the Mg-Zn
eutectics [17]. Chen et al. [17] and Turen [5] have been reported that
the addition of Sn to the ZA and AZ magnesium alloy lead to the sup-
pression of the eutectics transformation and refinement of the divorced
eutectics, their results is accord with our present results. Based on this,
ZAT422 alloy is considered to offer the optimal strength and elongation
(280 MPa UTS, 147 MPa YS and 17.4% elongation) among the experi-
mental alloys when considering just how much the strength is improved
for what is a relatively large decrease in elongation relative to ZA42
alloy.
4. Conclusions
The microstructure characteristics and mechanical properties of the
ZAT42x alloys with various Sn contents were studied in this work. The
main conclusions can be summarized as follows.
(1) The addition of Sn has a significant influence on the amount and the
type of intermetallic phases in as-cast Mg-Zn-Al alloy. The micro-
structure of Sn-containing alloys consist of α-Mg, Mg32 (Al, Zn) 49
and Mg2Sn phases, and the volume fraction of Mg2Sn phase in-
creases with increasing Sn content. The grains get refined with the
increase of Sn addition in as-cast Mg-Zn-Al-xSn alloys.
(2) The addition of Sn results in the refined recrystallized grains and
the weakened basal texture in as-extruded alloys. No Mg32 (Al, Zn)
49 phase is detected in the microstructure of as-extruded Mg-Zn-Al-
xSn alloys.
(3) Sn addition enhances both the yield strength and ultimate tensile
strength of as-extruded alloys, while it has an adverse effect on the
tensile elongation. The alloy with 2 wt% Sn exhibits the optimal
combination of tensile strength and ductility. The ultimate tensile
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Fig. 11. Tensile engineering stress-strain curves of the as-extruded ZAT42x alloys with various Sn additions. (a) ZAT420, (b) ZAT420.5, (c) ZAT421, (d) ZAT422, (e) ZAT423.

strength, yield strength and elongation are 280 MPa, 147 MPa and 630–635.
17.4%, respectively. [10] J.G. Jung, S.H. Park, H. Yu, Y.M. Kim, Y.K. Lee, B.S. You, Scr. Mater. 93 (2014)
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[11] L.Y. Jiang, D.F. Zhang, X.W. Fan, F. Guo, J. Alloy. Compd. 620 (2015) 368–375.
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