Materials Transactions, Vol. 47, No. 4 (2006) pp.

995 to 998
Special Issue on Platform Science and Technology for Advanced Magnesium Alloys, III
#2006 The Japan Institute of Metals

Fracture Toughness in an Extruded ZK60 Magnesium Alloy

Hidetoshi Somekawa* and Toshiji Mukai
Ecomaterials Center, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba 305-0047, Japan

Examination of fracture toughness has been performed a commercial Mg-Zn-Zr alloy, ZK60, with fine strengthening particles. The
commercial alloy was extruded at 633 K, and then heat treated at specific conditions. The microstructures were equi-axed grains, and average
grain size and precipitate size were 11.6 mm and 50–150 nm, respectively. The yield strength and elongation-to-failure were 225 MPa and 17.0%.
The plane-strain fracture toughness, KIC , was estimated to be 20.6 MPam1=2 in stretched zone analysis. From ductile fracture model, all the finer
particles did not affect the void formation. The precipitates having a large diameter, more than 100 nm, were supposed to be the origin of void
formation.

(Received December 1, 2005; Accepted February 24, 2006; Published April 15, 2006)
Keywords: toughness, magnesium alloy, extrusion, particle, ductile fracture model

1. Introduction treatment easily. Therefore, in this study, a wrought ZK60

Magnesium alloys have great potential to be used as
structural materials because of being the lightest of all
structural alloys in use. In order to use magnesium alloys in
structural applications, it is important to ensure that their
mechanical properties satisfy both reliability and safety
requirements. One of the methods of ensuring that is to
investigate the fracture toughness. There are some reports on
the fracture toughness in magnesium alloys1–5) and magne-
sium.6) However, the value of fracture toughness in magne-
sium alloys has been generally reported to be much lower
than that in aluminum alloys. Therefore, methods for
improving the fracture toughness have been investigated in
magnesium alloy.
To date, it has been reported that the fracture toughness of
magnesium alloys is affected by the basal texture.5) The
samples of magnesium alloys having a pre-crack normal to
the basal texture exhibited higher fracture toughness in
comparison with the samples having a pre-crack parallel to
the basal texture. In addition, grain refinement improves the
fracture toughness in magnesium6) and magnesium alloys.7,8)
This is a result of a large plastic zone created ahead of the
fracture pre-crack. The plastic zone influences the mechan-
ical properties of yield strength, elongation-to-failure and
strain hardening exponent. These sensitive factors in magne-
sium and magnesium alloys, the yield strength,6,9–11) the
elongation-to-failure12,13) and the strain hardening expo-
nent,6,7) increased with refining the grain structures. There-
fore, controlling of the basal texture and/or grain refinement
is one of the effective methods of improving the fracture
toughness in magnesium and magnesium alloy.
In general, it has been reported that the creation of fine
particle is also one of the effective methods of enhancement
for the fracture toughness in metallic materials.14–16) In
magnesium alloys, inclusions composed of Mn- or Fe-
bearing intermetallics are the origin of fracture.17) However,
the effect of particle, which enhances the fracture toughness,
has not been investigated yet. Mg-Zn-Zr alloy is a popular
alloy in which fine precipitates are created during heat
*Corresponding author, E-mail: SOMEKAWA.Hidetoshi@nims.go.jp
magnesium alloy has been used to examine the effect of
particles on the fracture toughness.
2. Experimental Procedure
The material used in the present study was a commercial
Mg-Zn-Zr alloy, ZK60. The as-received alloy was solution-
ized at a temperature of 773 K for 7.2 ks, and then the
solutionized alloy was extruded at 633 K with a reduction
ratio of 18. The extruded alloy was annealed at 618 K for
24 h, and then aged at 423 K for 24 h, in accordance with a
previous report.18) The microstructure of the material was
examined by laser three-dimensional (3D) microscopy and
transmission electron microscopy (TEM) with a JEOL
2000FX-II.
Tensile test was performed at an initial strain rate of
1
103 s1 at room temperature. The tensile specimen with
a gauge length of 10 mm and a gauge diameter of 2.5 mm was
machined from the material to make the tensile axis parallel
to the extrusion direction.
Plane-strain fracture toughness test was carried out
according to ASTM-E399.19) The fracture toughness speci-
men was a three point bending sample with a width and a
thickness of 10 and 5 mm, respectively. The fracture tough-
ness specimen was directly machined from the material. The
V-notch was normal to the extrusion direction. Before plane-
strain fracture toughness test, fatigue crack test was per-
formed to insert a fatigue pre-crack in the specimen. The pre-
crack length was between 0.45 and 0.55 W, where W is the
width of 10 mm. The plane-strain fracture toughness test was
carried out at a cross head speed of 1 mm/min. The fractured
surface after plane-strain fracture toughness test was exam-
ined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with a
HITACHI S-4800 and by laser 3D profile microscopy.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1 Microstructures
Typical microstructures of ZK60 alloy are shown in Fig. 1;
(a) laser 3D microscopy and (b) TEM bright-field image,
respectively. The average grain size, d (¼ 1:74L: L is the
996 H. Somekawa and T. Mukai
Fig. 1 Typical microstructures of ZK60 alloy: (a) laser 3D microscopy and
(b) TEM bright-field image, respectively.
linear intercept size), was 11.6 mm. Each grain was equi-axed
(without bimodal grain structures), because the present heat
treatment temperature was lower than the extrusion temper-
ature. It is also observed in Fig. 1(b) that many fine
precipitates having a diameter of 10–150 nm (average size;
50 nm) and spacing of 50–200 nm (average spacing;
200 nm) exist in the alloy. The composition of the
precipitates is MgZn according to previous reports.20,21)
3.2 Mechanical properties
Typical nominal stress and nominal strain tensile curve at
room temperature is shown in Fig. 2. The yield strength (
ys ),
ultimate tensile strength (
UTS ) and elongation-to-failure ()
were 225 MPa, 266 MPa and 17.0%, respectively. From
Fig. 2, it is noted that strain hardening occurred in ZK60
alloy and the strain hardening exponent, n, is estimated to be
0.140.
Stretched Zone (SZ) analysis has been frequently used to
estimate the plane-strain fracture toughness, KIC , for a sample
of small thickness.4–8) A typical SEM micrograph of the
fracture surface after plane-strain fracture toughness test is
Fig. 2 Typical nominal stress and nominal strain tensile curve at room
temperature.
Fig. 3 Typical SEM micrograph of the fracture surface after plane-strain
fracture toughness test.
shown in Fig. 3. The pre-crack propagated direction and SZ
are marked in this figure. It is found that the SZ exists
between the fatigue pre-crack and the fracture surface. A void
like feature, which indicates typical ductile fracture, was also
observed on the fracture surface. When the load was applied
to the specimen having a sharp pre-crack, the pre-crack itself
blunted and the crack-tip moved forward normal to the
tensile axis, producing the SZ. The SZ is closely related to the
value of KIC as follows equation:22)
KIC ¼ f2
SZH

E

ys =ð1  Þ2 g1=2 ð1Þ
where SZH is the stretched zone height,  is a constant
(¼ 223)), E is Young’s modulus and  is the Poisson ratio
(44.8 GPa and 0.35,18) respectively, for a wrought ZK60
alloy). From eq. (1), it is seen that the value of KIC depends
on the height of SZ, SZH. The SZH measured by laser 3D
profile microscopy and the calculated value of fracture
toughness, K, by eq. (1) are 4.5 mm and 20.6 MPam1=2 ,
respectively. The method to measure the SZH by laser 3D
profile microscopy was reported in detail elsewhere.5) The
value of fracture toughness, KQ , which is obtained according
to ASTM-E399, was 24.8 MPam1=2 in the present study. It is
found that the calculated value of the fracture toughness, K,
by using eq. (1) for ZK60 alloy is smaller than the values of
KQ . In general, the plane-stain fracture toughness, KIC , is the
smallest value; the value of K, which is estimated from SZ
 Fracture Toughness in an Extruded ZK60 Magnesium Alloy 997

analysis, is smaller or equal to the value of KQ according to

ASTM E-399. Therefore, the calculated value of fracture
toughness, K, is accepted as the value of KIC , 20.6 MPam1=2 .

3.3 Ductile fracture model

In ductile fracture, there have been a number of attempts to
establish the relation between the fracture toughness and (i)
the mechanical properties, which are obtained from tensile
test at room temperature,24–26) or (ii) other microstructural
parameters such as size, spacing and volume fraction of
inclusions and/or particles.27,28) In the present material, there
are traces of void formation, -typical ductile fracture-, on the
fracture surface after the fracture toughness test in Fig. 3. For
the initiation of the ductile fracture by void coalescence,
Ritchie et al.28) have indicated that the ductile fracture occurs
when the local effective plastic strain, "ep , at a crack tip have
exceeded the value of "f
ð
m =
Þ. The local effective plastic
strain, "ep , is defined the strain field adjacent to the crack tip
along y-axis and given by:29,30)
"ep  C
"ys
½JIC =f
ys
"ys
InðnÞ
Xg1=ðnþ1Þ ð2Þ
30)
where C is a material constant (¼ 0:74 ), JIC is the J-
Fig. 4 The variation in "ep and "f ð
m =
Þ as a function of X= in ZK60
integral (¼ fð1  2 Þ
KIC 2 g=E), "ys is the uniaxial fracture
alloy; (a) fine precipitates and (b) coarse precipitates, respectively.
strain at tensile test (¼ 0:174), X is the distance from the
origin of fracture, n is the strain hardening exponent and InðnÞ
is the function of n (¼ 10:3
ð0:13 þ nÞ1=2  4:8n31)). The
value of "f
ð
m =
Þ is the product of limitative fracture
strain, "f , and stress triaxially, (
m =
), which are respectively
given by:32,33)
"f ¼ 1=3
lnðM2 =3 f Þ ð3Þ
and
ð
m =
Þ ¼ 1=3
f1 þ 2 lnð1 þ 2X=Þg ð4Þ
where M is the fracture surface micro roughness (¼ h=w; h is
the micro void depth and w is the width32)), f is the volume Fig. 5 A simple illustration of present analysis in ductile fracture model.
fraction of particle (¼ dp 2 =2=ð31=2 p þ 21=2 dp Þ; dp is the
diameter of particle and p is the spacing of particle,34)
respectively) and  is the critical crack tip opening displace- A particle having a large diameter is generally the origin of
ment (¼ 2
SZH). The value of M has been experimentally void formation easily. Although the precipitate sizes in the
evaluated to be 0:6 in the previous article,35) and the extruded ZK60 alloy were mainly several 10 nm of order,
previous experimental value was substituted to eq. (3). precipitates having a larger diameter of over 100 nm also
Combined with eq. (1) and J-integral, eq. (2) is rewritten existed. From Fig. 1(a), spacing of the specific precipitate
as follows: having a diameter of 100 nm is estimated to be approximately
1 mm. Another example with dp ¼ 100 nm and p ¼ 1 mm is
"ep  C
"ys
½2
=f"ys
InðnÞ
Xg1=ðnþ1Þ ð5Þ
shown in Fig. 4(b). The value of intersection at x-axis is
By using eqs. (3)–(5), the variation in "ep and "f
ð
m =
Þ as estimated to be 0.32, and the interaction distance from crack
a function of X= is shown in Fig. 4. In Fig. 4(a), the average tip is calculated to be 3 mm. It is found that the precipitates,
precipitate size of 50 nm and average spacing of 200 nm were which exist 3 mm ahead of the fatigue pre-crack, is affective
assumed for analysis. A simple illustration of the present in void formation. The estimated value is similar to the
analysis of ductile fracture is shown in Fig. 5. From Fig. 4(a), spacing of the specific particles. Therefore, it is noted that (i)
the value of intersection between "ep and "f
ð
m =
Þ at x- it is possible to apply the ductile fracture model to the
axis is estimated to be 1.25. Since the value of SZH was magnesium alloys and (ii) precipitate having a large diameter
4.5 mm, the interaction distance from the crack tip is calcu- are origin of void formation.
lated to be 10 mm. Therefore, from the present analysis, it is
suggested that the void formation occurs at the particle, 4. Summary
which exists 10 mm ahead of the fatigue pre-crack (Fig. 5).
However, the average spacing of fine precipitates [Fig. 1(b)] The fracture toughness of an extruded ZK60 alloy was
was 200 nm. The estimated distance, X, by using dp ¼ investigated. The following results were obtained.
50 nm and p ¼ 200 nm [Fig. 4(a)], is not in agreement with (1) From microstructure observation, the average grain size
the present result of the TEM observation. and precipitate size were 11.6 mm and 50–150 nm,
998 H. Somekawa and T. Mukai
respectively. The yield strength, elongation-to-failure
and plane-strain fracture toughness were 225 MPa, 17%
and 20.6 MPam1=2 , respectively.
(2) It was possible to apply the ductile fracture model to the
magnesium alloy. From the ductile fracture model, a
precipitate having a large diameter of more than 100 nm
was affectively the origin of void formation in the ZK60
alloy.
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