Magnesium Application: Forging Of Magnesium Alloys

Magnesium Application: Forging Of Magnesium Alloys

The forging of aluminium alloys has been on the rise in the last few decades. With more and more industries adopting lighter parts, magnesium alloys have increasingly become one of the best options. There are also many benefits that these alloys offer, making them the most sought after forging metals.

Forged aluminum alloys have a vast range of application in various industries. In the automotive industry, these alloys are making the wheels. The alloys are actually better than foundry products that have been used for a long time. In this handy guide, we look at some of the key things you need to know about forging od aluminum alloys:

The Magnesium Properties

Before we go to the forging and aspect, let’s highlight some of the key magnesium properties. These are the factors that make this metal good for forging. Magnesium is the lightest metal in the world. That’s the reason why it is attracting too much attention in the recent past due to its lightweight features. The metal also offers reasonably strong properties making its alloys ideal for various metal parts.

The corrosion resistance features most of the magnesium alloys is another property making it popular. Other properties, including precipitation behavior are just some of the things making the technology popular in the manufacturing industry.

Common Magnesium Forging Alloys

There are some many of the magnesium allots being used in the industry today. But the most popular among them is aluminium. It is one of the most widely used because it increased the strength and hardness of magnesium. Aluminum also increases the castability of the magnesium as well as allowing precipitation hardening of the alloy.

There are other varieties of magnesium-aluminum alloys that also includes other metals such as manganese and calcium. Other metals magnesium alloys include zinc, and rare red earth components and so on.

The Main Magnesium Alloys forging Characteristics

Magnesium is offering many forging characteristics, but this depends on the kind of alloy used. With the aluminum alloys, mg offers almost the same characteristics as aluminum, such as lightweight. Just like AL, it is a soft metal with incredible mechanical properties. So, it is easy to forge, even when using cold forging technology to form most of the products.

At high temperature, most magnesium alloys have a larger surface friction coefficient, and mobility is poor.  The adhesion of the materials is also large and could be a problem to fill the deep vertical holes. So, when compared with aluminum alloys, mg alloys have a larger filler radius when heated.

The other forging characteristic of magnesium alloys is that blanks have problems with the hydraulic process if not homogenized. It is essential to note that pre-heating works even for the cold forging of the mg alloys. The pre-heating should be done on both the billet and the mold. If you don’t heat the mold, then the forged magnesium alloy will start cracking.

The deformation speed is also a significant factor to consider because it determines the mg alloys’ plasticity. Lastly, the pre-heating temperature must be correct to avoid grain growth.

Forged Magnesium Alloy And Its Forging Temperature

The other thing you need to know about forging magnesium alloy forging is the forging temperature. If the material needs to be hot forged, there are recommended temperature for every alloy combo. It is important to note that magnesium is under the classification of soft metals and thus has a lower melting point. This means you can achieve the plasticity of the material within a few hundreds of heat degrees.

For most of the magnesium alloys, very few can reach a forging temperature above 400 degrees Celsius. So, the most important thing to check the recommended crystallization temperature of the alloy you want to forge. There are many research work that will help get the forging temperature for various mg alloys. Check them out before you start with the project.

Conclusion

The forging of magnesium is growing fast, and we expect the trend to continue growing as the demand for lighter parts increases. If you want to forge magnesium alloys, make sure that you have gotten the correct alloys. Get all the parameters correct for starting with forging process. That’s how you get quality parts.