In this study, the precipitation behavior of the pretwinned extruded Mg–6Al–1Zn alloy was investigated. It was observed that the precipitates preferentially nucleated at the twin boundaries or within the preexistent twins. This distribution of the precipitates led to the distinguishing influences on subsequent compression and tension process, which were dominated by twinning and detwinning of the preexistent twins, respectively. The compressive yield strength after aging was a little lower than the stress when the precompression was interrupted, which meant that the impeding effect of precipitation on twin expansion was relatively smaller than that of dislocations induced by precompression. However, the tensile yield strength of aged samples was extremely higher than that of non-aged samples as the migration of the twin boundaries during detwinning was considerably hindered because of the preferential precipitation within the preexistent {10-12} twins.

A new ternary compound Dy5Co6Sn18 was synthesized and studied. The crystal structure of Dy5Co6Sn18 was determined using the Rietveld refinement method. The compound was found to crystallize in tetragonal space group I41/acd, Tb5Rh6Sn18-type structure, with a=13.5598(3) Å, c=7.1470(5) Å, Z=8, and Dcalc=8.789 g/cm3. Measurements of magnetic susceptibility and electrical resistivity on polycrystalline samples were also performed. The Curie–Weiss law was followed, with θp=−15.7 K and μeff=10.61μB. Dy5Co6Sn18 is a spin-glass with a freezing temperature of 6.5 K.

A new ternary compound Al0.35GdGe2 has been synthesized and studied by means of X-ray powder diffraction technique. The ternary compound Al0.35GdGe2 crystallizes in the orthorhombicwith the CeNiSi2 structure type (space group Cmcm, a=4.0874(2) Å, b=16.1499(5) Å,c=3.9372(1) Å, Z=4, and Dcalc=8.007 g/cm3).