As the application of magnesium (Mg) has increased significantly in the past decade, thanks to the high strength to density ratio, studies aiming to shed more light on its outstanding mechanical behavior have received attention. Several experimental and numerical studies suggest the Mg behavior strongly depends on its texture, grain size, and loading orientation, among other influential parameters.
In this work, we investigate the microstructure-property linkages in magnesium (Mg) with an emphasis on understanding the interacting effects of the grain size, texture, and loading orientation. A single crystal plasticity framework enriched with experimentally informed micro Hall-Petch type relations for the activation thresholds for slip and twinning is implemented. Systematic studies are performed using polycrystalline RVE to predict the material responses in the texture and grain size space. The macroscopic trends from the simulations corroborate with experiments. The simulations predict a reduced extension twinning with grain size refinement even though the micro Hall-Petch coefficient for twinning is smaller than that for the non-basal slip modes. Grain refinement results in a reduction of both, the net plastic anisotropy and tension-compression, and the degree to which they reduce depend on the loading orientation. The results offer possibilities to engineer Mg microstructures aiming to achieve higher damage toughness.