Anisotropic Mechanical Properties of Pure Magnesium Analyzed by In Situ Nanoindentation

In this work, correlation between nanomechanical properties and crystallographic orientation of grains in 99.9 % magnesium is presented. Crystallographic orientation of individual grains was obtained by scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) detector. Hardness and elastic modulus of grains with known orientation were subsequently determined by in situ nanoindentation in SEM. We show that hardness decreases with increasing angle between the direction of indentation and thec-axis of grains, while elastic modulus varies non-monotonically.