The Effects of Varying Aluminum and Rare-Earth Content on the Mechanical Properties of Die Cast Magnesium Alloys

The development of commercial magnesium die casting alloys has progressed over the past several decades. The most commonly used die casting alloy, AZ91D, with 9% aluminum content, has been and still is used in the majority of structural automotive applications.

New magnesium alloys have been developed in the past several years to meet the needs of structural applications that require an appreciable amount of creep resistance and improved stress relaxation performance during service. Typical applications would include powertrain components.

This paper provides further mechanical property data on the “AE-Type” magnesium alloys. These alloys consist primarily of aluminum and rare-earth additions to magnesium to increase creep resistance and stress relaxation performance attributes of the base metal. However, changes in tensile strength, elongation, etc. may also be realized.