This work reports an exceptional reversed yield strength asymmetry at room temperature for a rare-earth free magnesium alloy containing a mass of fine dispersed quasicrystal (I-phase) precipitates. Although exhibiting traditional basal texture, it owns an exceptional CYS/TYS as high as ~1.17. Electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) examinations indicate pyramidal < c + a > and prismatic < c > dislocations plus tensile twinning being activated after immediate yielding in compression while basal and non-basal < a > dislocations in tension. I-phase particles transferred the concentrated stress by self-twinning to provide the driving force for tensile twin initiating in neighboring grains, thereby significantly increasing the critical resolved shear stress of tensile twinning to possibly the level of pyramidal < c + a > slip, finally leading to the dominance of pyramidal < c + a > slip plus tensile twinning in texture grains. This results in a higher contribution on yield strength by ~55 MPa in compression than in tension, which reasonably agrees with the experimental yield strength difference (~38 MPa). It can be concluded that I-phase particles influence deformation modes in tension and in compression, finally result in reversed yield strength asymmetry.

Instantaneous reactions of Al, Mn, Zn, Zr and Y with Ni by mixing the prepared Mg-8Al-0.4Mn, Mg-6Zn-2Y-0.5Zr and Mg-0.6Ni melts were investigated in this work to reveal the underlying mechanisms of their effects on the removal of Ni impurity. The results indicate three Ni-containing intermetallics, namely Al₄NiY, Al₄Ni(Y,Zr) and Al₃₁Ni₂Mn₆. The former two phases present lath-like and have a relatively larger size (> 20 µm in length) than the latest one which is granular with the diameter of ~120 nm. This illustrates that Al and Y(/Zr) can efficiently remove Ni by forming Al₄NiY or Al₄Ni(Y,Zr) which would precipitate to the bottom of the melt. Furthermore, adding Y into Mg-Al based alloys can simultaneously remove Fe and Ni, which contributes their excellent corrosion resistance. Finally, this paper proposes two methods helped to efficiently remove Ni for both Mg-Al based alloys and Al-free Mg alloys, and both of them are also benefit to improve alloys’ strength.