Basal slip mediated tension twin variant selection in magnesium WE43 alloy

Tension twinning nucleation and evolution in Mg WE43 alloy over a large sampling area was investigated using a quasi-in-situ EBSD/SEM method during interrupted compression testing. The results showed tension twins with both high and low macroscopic Schmid factor (MSF) were activated under a compressive stress of 100 MPa with a strain rate of 10−1 s−1. Basal slip in most grains dominated at this stress, so nucleation of twin variants required little interaction with non-basal slip, which was different from other studies that reported prismatic slip and/or tension twinning were required to activate some low MSF tension twin variants. The geometric compatibility factor (m') was demonstrated to be an important factor to determine tension twin variant selection assisted by basal slip. The analysis indicated m' played a critical role over MSF in tension twin variant selection during twin nucleation stage, and final twin variant types were insensitive to increasing stress, but they inherited twin variant types determined at twin nucleation stage. Moreover, which specific grain boundary of a grain with hard orientation for basal slip would nucleate which twin variant could be also validated by m' and largely depended on two factors: (a) high value of m' with 1st or 2nd rank between the tension twinning of nucleated twin variant and basal slip in adjoining grains; and (b) intensive basal slip activity in the neighbouring grains before twin nucleation.