IIT Madras Develops New Light –Weight Alloy – Free PDF Download

• Researchers from the following 3 organizations have developed an engineered magnesium alloy with significantly improved properties.

1. Indian Institute of Technology Madras
2. University of North Texas
3. S. Army Research Laboratory

Why is Mg used less right now?

• The current industrial application of wrought magnesium alloys in structural components is very limited due to their

1. Poor strength
2. Poor ductility
3. Yield strength asymmetry
4. Lack of high strain rate super-plasticity

• *The density of Mg is 2/3^rd of aluminium and 1/4^th of steel.

• Ductilityis a measure of a material’s ability to undergo significant plastic deformation before rupture or breaking
• The yield strength or yield stress is a material property and is the stress corresponding to the yield point at which the material begins to deform plastically.
• The yield strength is used to determine the maximum allowable load in a mechanical component, since it represents the upper limit to forces that can be applied without producing permanent deformation.
• Prior to the yield point, a material will deform elasticallyand will return to its original shape when the applied stress is removed.
• Once the yield point is passed, some fraction of the deformation will be permanent and non-reversible and is known as plastic deformation.

The Research team’s approach

• For the research, the scientists used a magnesium alloy containing rare earth elements like

1. Gadolinium (Gd)
2. Yttrium (Y)
3. Zirconium (Zr)

• The alloy was subjected to a thermo-mechanical processing technique (severe plastic deformation and ageing treatment) to obtain an ultrafine-grained version of this magnesium alloy.
• Thereafter, the team engineered the nano-precipitates and thermally stable ultrafine intermetallic compounds in the ultra-fine-grained magnesium alloy.
• Through this technique, the group was able to achieve the highest combination of strength-ductility and highest high strain rate superplasticity among all the existing magnesium alloys reported in the literature to date.
• The new engineered alloy is –

1. Strong
2. lightweight
3. highly ductile
4. its superplasticity is achieved at higher strain-rates

• These properties reduce overall manufacturing time, effort and costs.

Why is this development significant?

• Vehicular emissions contribute about 27%  of total carbon dioxide emissions
• Countries around the world are focusing on reducing them.
• A major focus has been lowering the carbon footprint of vehicles by using light-weight material in their body.
• Light-weight vehicles take less energy (fuel) to run and are therefore one of the strategies to increase vehicle’s energy-efficiency.
• This new Magnesium alloy can replace steel and aluminium alloys in automotive and aerospace

Latest Burning Issues | Free PDF

Sharing is caring!