Abstract: | Superplastic Characteristics of a Conventional AM20 Magnesium Alloy Despite the increasing interest of the industry in lightweight materials during the last years, an intensive industrial use of magnesium based alloys due to the their restricted cold‐workability caused by the hexagonal lattice is still very limited. Considering this limitation a solution is provided by the superplastic forming of magnesium based alloys which, in contrast to other types of materials, is neither metallurgically developed nor process optimized. A very promising step is the extrusion of the conventional AM20 magnesium alloy followed by controlled cooling of the extruded material in order to reduce the grain growth caused by secondary recrystallisation are suitable means to produce a fine grained microstructure. After a short presentation of the theoretical background and methods to determine the superplastic characteristics, the strongly improved material properties of the AM20 magnesium alloy are revealed by increased m‐values and higher elongation‐to‐fracture‐values (εmax = 550%) determined by tensile tests at constant strain rates. |