UCLA

Serrated flow, also known as the Portevin-Le Chatelier effect, has been extensively investigated in binary Mg-alloys such as Mg-Ag, Mg-Y and Mg-Li alloys. Interestingly, however, this effect has not been observed in Mg-Al alloys. In this work, we report the appearance of serrations in nanostructured Mg-Al alloys processed by cryomilling and spark-plasma-sintering during in-situ SEM microcompression tests at room temperature and strain rates between 2 × 10− 3 and 10− 1 s− 1. The observed serrated stress-strain behavior is attributed to the dynamic strain aging by which interstitial O and/or N impurities introduced during cryomilling diffuse and interact with in-grown dislocations during deformation.