To meet the recent increased demand for low cost Mg sheet products in electronic and automotive industries as the lightest structural materials for use in reducing weight and carbon emissions, POSCO-RIST have launched the program for developing the mass production technology of Mg coil by strip casting and continuous coil rolling process in 2004. As results of the program, AZ31 Mg cast strips of 600 mm width and 3.0 to 7.0 mm thickness have successfully been produced for up to a day with several Mg coils of 1250 mm diameter. With optimized heat treatment conditions, a high speed reversible warm rolling process of strip cast AZ31 coils with maximum width of 600 mm and thickness down to 0.5 mm has been developed successfully. The microstructure, mechanical properties, and formability of as-cast and as-rolled AZ31 sheet show that the new integrated process can produce qualified and cost-competitive Mg alloy sheets. With this successful development of production technology, POSCO-RIST have decided to install the commercial Mg coil production plant with updated post treatment facility till mid 2007.
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