Chuanlai Liu and Franz Roters win Best Paper Award

Chuanlai Liu and Franz Roters from the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials (MPI-SusMat) won the International Magnesium Science and Technology award for a paper they published together with their colleagues on plastic deformation of magnesium alloys. Magnesium alloys are widely used in industrial machinery or cars due to their light weight and high-temperature resistance. 

Using 3D electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and advanced modelling techniques they were abled to show that traditional 2D analysis methods may underestimate magnesium’s twinning activity by up to 50%. Twinning is an effective method of controlling the alloys microstructure and therefore properties. These findings bring new insights into twinning mechanisms from the aspects of grain orientation, grain neighbourhood and resolved shear stress that opens possibilities for the design of stronger and more ductile magnesium alloys.

The awarded paper is a collaboration of scientists from the University of Southampton (UK), MPI-SusMat and the Shanghai Jiao University (China).