In recent years, the continuous advancement of global industrial technology, the growing

concerns on the lightweight structural applications keep inspiring us to develop high-strength

and lightweight materials. Magnesium (Mg) and its alloys are potential candidates to meet the
abovementioned requirements. Accordingly, Mg and its alloys are considered to be one of the
most promising materials in automotive, aerospace, electronics and biomedical industries due
to their low density, low elastic modulus, high strength-to-weight ratio, and fracture
toughness. However, the inferior properties such as low strength, modulus and low corrosion
resistance of Mg alloys are still difficult to satisfy the requirements of many industrial
applications. Thus, in order to promote the large-scale industrial applications of Mg alloys, it
is urgently needed to further improve their mechanical and corrosion properties. New Mg
alloys with improved mechanical and corrosion properties have been produced by adding Al,
Zn, Ca, Zr, and Mn and various alloying elements to Mg. Zinc (Zn) is one of the important
alloying elements for commercial Mg alloys that increase the mechanical properties and
corrosion resistance. However, for some applications, Mg alloys may still be insufficient. To
expand the application scope of Mg alloys, studies on the production of Mg matrix
composites is one of the most effective strategies for the further enhancement of mechanical
properties and corrosion performance. The corrosion and mechanical characteristics of a
magnesium matrix composite may be altered by choosing reinforcing elements with varied
content, distribution, and size. Numerous reinforcing materials have been used in this respect,
including hydroxyapatite (HAP), zinc oxide, bioactive glass, calcium particles, calcium
polyphosphate particles (CPP), and calcium phosphate-based ceramics. In addition to these
materials, many oxide materials have been employed as fillers to create Mg-based
composites, including alumina. Nowadays, MMCs with ceramic particles as reinforcement
materials have been produced by stir casting, squeeze casting, spray deposition, disintegrated
melt deposition, and powder metallurgy. The selection of a processing method depends on
factors including production cost, required porosity level, less chemical reactivity during
processing, mass production capacity. Among these processing methods, stir casting is
flexible, commercially applicable, and has a low production cost. Thus, stir casting was used
to fabricate WZ73-SiC MMC in the current study.
Literature reviews revealed that no prior attempts have been made to introduce SiC
particles into a LPSO-containing WZ73 alloy. Accordingly, the aim of the present study is to
fabricate the WZ73-SiC MMC using a stir casting method and to provide an early insight on
the WZ73-SiC system by first investigating the effects of the SiC addition on the elimination
of the LPSO phase, mechanical properties, and corrosion behaviour of WZ73 alloy.