A review: Past, present and future of grain refining of magnesium castings

Magnesium is the lightest constructional metal, which makes it an important material for different applications like automotive, transportation, aviation and aerospace. There are several studies about developing properties of existing Mg alloys and introducing new alloy systems to industrial producers. An important way to improve properties of metallic materials is to decrease grain size that results almost in increasing all kind of properties of the material. This review paper aims to summarize the literature about grain refining of magnesium alloys. The text is consisting of three sections, which focused on the (1) grain refining methods used in the past, which are not used today, (2) grain refining methods currently being used in the industry and (3) novel and newly developed methods that may find usage in the industry in future. Before explaining grain refining methods of magnesium alloys a general summary about grain refinement of metals is also provided. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Chongqing University.