Cooperation between CAS and Local Authorities

Rare Earth Magnesium Alloys See Broad Industrialization

There are 10 subjects under the “Project on High-performance Rare Earth Magnesium Alloys” jointly undertaken by the “Strategic Alliance between Industry-University-Research Institutions on Rare Earth Magnesium Alloys”. This Alliance was initiated by the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (CIAC), CAS and consists of 12 members, including, among others, the Jilin University, Changchun Seeway Magnesium Co., Ltd., Changchun Railway Vehicles Co., Ltd., FAW Foundry Co., Ltd. and Changchun Xuyang Automobile Technology Development Co., Ltd. After two years’ work, a series of innovative achievements with proprietary intellectual property rights have been made in the preparation, spare parts design, casting, welding, press working and corrosion protection of magnesium alloys. In this regard, CIAC has established 2 enterprise standards, obtained 10 invention patents, publicly published 19 theses and made innovative progress in the following 8 aspects: 1) optimization of five master alloy compositions, including Mg-Nd22.1％, Mg-Gd20％, Mg-Ymm25％, Mg-Y20.8％ and Mg-LPC (Lanthanum-praseodymium-cerium) 22％, through study of textural, physical and chemical properties of rare earth magnesium alloys, which guarantees the best status of electrolytic production of rare earth master alloy and the process of adding rare earth into alloys; 2) establishment of a magnesium rare earth magnesium alloy R&D and production base with an annual production capacity of 100 tons; 3) through study of the law of microstructure transition, fatigue and creeping process of rare earth magnesium alloy, optimizing the compositional characteristics of high-performance magnesium alloys, directing the development of composition, texture and performance of magnesium alloys and establishing enterprise standard for high quality magnesium alloys; 4) development of AZ91 alloy added with right amount of Nd and Y, which creep resistance increases by 20 times and operating temperatures increases from 120℃ to over 150℃; 5) development of AZ91 alloy added with right amount of LPC, which corrosion resistance increases by over 70 times; 6) development of high-strength, high tenacity and wrought rare earth magnesium alloy MB26, which was successfully used in the preparation of space parts for a spacecraft of our country and realized effective weight loss of that spacecraft; 7) development of a new material containing rare earth magnesium alloys for use in national defense, of which the unit weight is 34% less than that of the original material; and 8) trial production of ventilating windows of passenger car to collaborate with the Changchun Car Company in its project on lightening high-speed railway passenger cars, which realized the goal of effective weight loss.