Thixotropic behavior of semi-solid magnesium alloy

By a high-temperature Couette type viscometer, we studied the thixotropic behavior of the semi-solid AZ91D magnesium alloy slurry. According to different variable conditions, we could measure the change of the shear stress. The results showed that the shear stress of semi-solid AZ91D magnesium alloy slurry increased at starting shearing, and the shear stress fell down at the maintained shear rate shearing. In our experiment data, we found that the semi-solid AZ91D magnesium alloy slurry had the behavior of shear thinning fluid. As the maximum shear rate increased, the measured shear stress increased at a dissimilar level. When the rising time was shorter, the increasing range of shear stress was larger. As the shearing time of the maintained shear rate increased, the falling down degree of the shear stress increased and it can be presented as a function of shearing time, such as: τ_min=11331e^-0.0159t. At the same shear rate, the area of hysteresis loop was bigger and the thixotropic behavior was more obvious.