Characterization of Twinning and Dislocation Slip in Magnesium and Magnesium-Gadolinium Alloys by High Spatio-Temporal Resolution

A combination of in-situ scanning electron microcopy (SEM), acoustic emission (AE) technique and high-speed camera recording has been employed for study the mechanical behavior of Mg single-crystals and Mg-Gd polycrystals. The combination of these techniques enables to study the active deformation processes with exceptional spatiotemporal resolution. The influence of Gd atoms on the twin propagation is discussed in detail. The kinetics of the twinning and dislocation slip revelaed experimentally is compared with molecular dynamics and finite element method simulations.