Korean Journal of Materials Research ISSN:1225-0562(Print) 2287-7258(Online) 한국재료학회지

Magnesium alloy is the lightest practical metal. It has excellent specific strength and recyclability as well as abundant reserves, and is expected to be a next-generation structural metal material following aluminum alloy. This paper investigated the possibility of thin plate fabrication by applying a overheating treatment to the melt drag method, and investigating the surface shape of the thin plate, grain size, grain size distribution, and Vickers hardness. When the overheating treatment was applied to magnesium alloy, the grains were refined, so it is expected that further refinement of grains can be realized if the overheating treatment is applied to the melt drag method. By applying overheating treatment, it was possible to fabricate a thin plate of magnesium alloy using the melt drag method, and a microstructure with a minimum grain size of around 12 μm was obtained. As the overheating treatment temperature increased, void defects increased on the roll surface of the thin plate, and holding time had no effect on the surface shape of the thin plate. The fabricated thin plate showed uniform grain size distribution. When the holding times were 0 and 30 min, the grain size was refined, and the effect of the holding time became smaller as the overheating treatment temperature increased. As the overheating temperature becomes higher, the grain size becomes finer, and the finer the grain size is, the higher the Vickers hardness.