The hot deformation behavior of Al-Zn-Mg-0.25Sc-Zr alloy and its microstructural evolution were investigated by isothermal axisymmetric hot compression tests at temperatures from 340 to 500°C and strain rates ranging from 0.001 to 10 s -1 .The steady flow stress increased with increasing the strain rate or decreasing the deformation temperature,which can be described by a hyperbolic-sine constitutive equation with the deformation activation energy of 150.25 kJ/mol.The tendency of dynamic recrystallization enhanced at high deforming temperatures and low strain rates,which corresponded to low Z values.With decreasing Z value,the main softening mechanism of the alloy transformed from dynamic recovery to dynamic recrystallization, correspondingly,the subgrain size increased and the dislocation density decreased.
The flow stress behavior of ZK60 alloy at elevated temperature was investigated. The strain hardening and dynamic recrystallization of the alloy were modeled by Kocks-Meching model and Avrami equation, respectively. A new constitutive equation during hot deformation was constructed to predict the flow stress considering the dynamic recrystallization. The results show that the flow stress curves predicted by the proposed equation have high correlation coefficients with the experimental data, which confirms that the developed model is accurate and effective to establish the flow stress equation of ZK60 magnesium alloy during hot deformation. Microstructure observation shows that dynamic recovery occurs in the initial stage of hot deformation. However, the microstructure turns to recrvstallization structure as the strain increases.
