Effect of Zr content on damping property of Mg–Zr binary alloys

The damping property expressed by internal friction tan⁡φ of as-cast Mg–Zr binary alloys with Zr content from 0.6 to 5.0% was experimentally measured under conditions of changing temperature from ambient temperature Tam to 600 K (327 °C), vibration frequency f from 1.0 to 10.0 Hz, strain ε from 1.0 × 10–6 to 1.0 × 10–3, and heating rate ν from 2 to 5 K/min. The experimental results indicate that the damping property of prepared as-cast Mg–Zr binary alloys can be effectively promoted by increasing either heating rate ν or strain ε. Increasing vibration frequency f can effectively decrease the damping property, however increasing vibration frequency f has little effect on the plots of internal friction tan⁡φ against temperature T, i.e., T–tanφ curve, under the condition of f > 5.0 Hz. The optimal Zr content of the as-cast Mg–Zr binary alloys with better performance of damping property is recommended to be 0.6 mass % in a range of Zr content from 0.6 to 5.0%. Furthermore, the effect of strain ε on damping property for the as-cast Mg–Zr binary alloys can be ideally explained by dislocation pinning theory or the G–L model, while the influence of temperature T on damping property for the as-cast Mg–Zr binary alloys complies with the viscoelastic relaxation behaviour.