Improving Compressive Failure Strain and Work of Fracture of Magnesium by Integrating it with Millimeter Length Scale Aluminum

Solidification processing followed by hot coextrusion was used to fabricate a bimetal magnesium/aluminum macrocomposite containing millimeter-scale Al core reinforcement. Microstructural characterization revealed limited interfacial interdiffusion of both metals into each other. Compressive testing revealed that the presence of Al core does not affect 0.2%YS, marginally decreases ultimate compressive strength (UCS), and significantly increases failure strain (115%) and work of fracture (55%) of Mg. The effect of the presence of mm-scale Al core on the compressive properties of the bimetal macrocomposite is investigated in this article.