Achievement

Third year Trainee Cynthia Byer has been investigating dislocation movement and failure in single crystal magnesium. Much of her work has been experimental, using a focused ion beam (FIB) apparatus to prepare micropillars of magnesium and subsequently performing mechanical tests on these micropillars. In particular, she is attempting to determine if there is a size effect in magnesium materials, and if so to what extent it is important to failure in magnesium. Furthermore, she has looked at the effect that crystal orientation and etching have on the size effect. Her work shows that initial dislocation density in the sample are likely to play a role in size effects for hexagonally close packed (HCP) single crystals like magnesium. Her work will help develop insights into the mechanisms of magnesium failure, which is an important issue as magnesium is considered for structural use in automotive and armor applications due to its light weight.