Guohua Wu Makes Magnesium-Rare Earth Alloy A Credit to Aerospace

Magnesium-rare earth alloy, an important material for aerospace, has been adopted in a new generation helicopter fleet, which fleet flew over Tiananmen Square at the National Day parade in 2019. Under the leadership of Academician Wenjiang Ding, the director of the National Engineering Research Center, Professor Guohua Wu made a significant contribution to the smooth implementation of the project, and it is a key step for the first batch application of new magnesium alloy materials in major equipment projects.

After more than ten years of hard work, Professor Guohua Wu's team broke through a series of forming technology bottlenecks, successfully developed crucial and complex load-bearing components, filled a gap in the new generation of high-strength heat-resistant magnesium alloy materials for helicopters, which reduced weight by more than 25%. China owns three world firsts in magnesium, respectively are, magnesium resource reserves, magnesium production, and magnesium exports, making the domestic magnesium industry one of the most advanced industries.

In 2002, the research on new magnesium rare earth alloys was still in its infancy. The grades of rare earth-magnesium alloys were scarce, the quality was also poor, which severely restricted its practical engineering applications. Professor Wu found the crux of the problem and believed that the purification of magnesium melt and the miniaturization of the structure have become one of the key bottlenecks restricting the further promotion and application of magnesium alloys. Therefore, since 2002, he started the research on the preparation technology of high-quality magnesium rare earth alloy melt and concentrated on the key technology of purification and refinement of magnesium alloy melt.

Guohua Wu in view of the difficulties of easy oxidation and combustion of magnesium alloys, difficult removal of inclusions, and difficult control of rare earth element components, and invented a new method and equipment for the composite treatment of magnesium-rare earth alloy that integrates melt protection, purification, and refinement. In terms of fine crystallization and solidification structure control, he invented the zirconium composite refiner and refinement method, and developed methods and devices for on-line component detection and solidification structure control of magnesium alloys to achieve micronization and homogenization of the cast structure. It took an extremely important flip for the application of new magnesium-rare earth alloys.

In recent years, China's aerospace field has put forward an urgent need for lightweight materials. The magnesium-rare earth alloy has the advantages of low density, high specific strength, and high specific rigidity, etc. As magnesium alloy is currently the lightest metal structural material in practical applications, it could greatly improve the combat technical indicators of weapons and equipment. Mg-Gd-Y series magnesium alloy is a new type of high-performance heavy rare-earth magnesium alloy, which has broad application prospects in aerospace, military industry, and automotive fields.

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