Abstract
Magnesium, as a lightweight constructional material, is suitable for application in the aviation industry. However, the use of magnesium in aircraft was banned by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to the low ignition temperature and problematic extinguishing.
Nevertheless, the ban was lifted under the condition that magnesium alloys have to pass the ignition tests. Therefore, this paper is focused on the effect of Y, Gd and Ca alloying elements on the mechanical, corrosion and ignition properties of low-alloyed binary and quaternary magnesium alloys.
The highest increase of ignition temperature among binary alloys (by up to 120 K compared to pure Mg) was achieved for a Mg-0.5Ca alloy. The excellent value of the ignition temperature (1131 K) was measured for the low-alloyed quaternary alloy Mg-0.5Y-0.5Gd-0.5Ca, thanks to the synergic protective effect of oxides of all the selected alloying elements.