Effect of extrusion process on the mechanical and in vitro degradation performance of a biomedical Mg-Zn-Y-Nd alloy

A new type of biomedical Mg-Zn-Y-Nd alloy was developed and thermal extruded by different processes to investigate the effect of extrusion ratio and extrusion pass on its microstructure, mechanical property and degradation performance. The results show that the increase of extrusion ratio could promote the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) process and led to the coarsening of DRXed grains. While the increase of extrusion pass also contributes to the DRX process but refines the DRXed grains. The simultaneous increasing of extrusion ratio and extrusion pass refines the secondary phases obviously. The increase of extrusion ratio has reduced the tensile strength but improved the elongation of the alloy significantly. However, the increase of extrusion pass could enhance the tensile strength and elongation simultaneously, especially the strength. The degradation performance has been optimized effectively through increasing the extrusion ratio and extrusion pass.