Tailoring the morphology and distribution of the Al₂Ca second phase is important for improving mechanical properties of Al₂Ca-containing Mg-Al-Ca based alloys. This work employed the industrial-scale multi-pass rotary-die equal channel angular pressing (RD-ECAP) on an as-cast Mg-3.7Al-1.8Ca-0.4Mn (wt %) alloy and investigated its microstructure evolution and mechanical properties under three different processing parameters. The obtained results showed that RD-ECAP was effective for refining the microstructure and breaking the network-shaped Al₂Ca phase. With the increase of the ECAP number and decrease of the processing temperature, the average sizes of Al₂Ca particles decreased obviously, and the dispersion of the Al₂Ca phase became more uniform. In addition, more ECAP passes and lower processing temperature resulted in finer α-Mg grains. Tensile test results indicated that the 573 K-12p alloy with the finest and most dispersed Al₂Ca particles exhibited superior mechanical properties with tensile yield strength of 304 MPa, ultimate tensile strength of 354 MPa and elongation of 10.3%. The improved comprehensive mechanical performance could be attributed to refined DRX grains, nano-sized Mg₁₇Al₁₂ precipitates and dispersed Al₂Ca particles, where the refined and dispersed Al₂Ca particles played a more dominant role in strengthening the alloys.

Developing high strength and high ductility magnesium alloys is an important issue for weight-reduction applications. In this work, we explored the feasibility of manipulating nanosized precipitates on LPSO-contained (long period stacking ordered phase) ultra-fine grained (UFG) magnesium alloy to obtain simultaneously improved strength and ductility. The effect of two aging treatments on microstructures and mechanical properties of an UFG Mg-10Y-6Gd-1.5Zn-0.5Zr alloy was systematically investigated and compared by a series of microstructure characterization techniques and tensile test. The results showed that nano γ’’ precipitates were successfully introduced in T5 peak aged alloy with no obvious increase in grain size. While T6 peak aging treatment stimulated the growth of α-Mg grains to 4.3 μm (fine grained, FG), together with the precipitation of γ’’ precipitates. Tensile tests revealed that both aging treatments remarkably improved the strengths but impaired the ductility slightly. The T5 peak aged alloy exhibited the optimum mechanical properties with ultimate strength of 431 MPa and elongation of 13.5%. This work provided a novel strategy to simultaneously improve the strength and ductility of magnesium alloys by integrating the intense precipitation strengthening with ductile LPSO-contained UFG/FG microstructure.