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Short fibres, whiskers or ceramic particulates reinforced Mg based composites, which are conventionally known as discontinuous magnesium composites, represent a class of advanced materials that exhibit the attractive properties, like high specific strength and stiffness, low density, excellent castability, etc. [1-3].
The creep resistance of magnesium alloys is rather limited at temperatures above 400 K. However, a marked improvement in the creep properties of magnesium monolithic alloys can be potentially achieved through the production of composite materials where the matrices consist of conventional magnesium alloys which are strengthened through the introduction of non-metallic fibres or particulates (metal matrix composites – MMCs). The present paper concentrates on this approach and presents results of extensive creep experiments on two representative magnesium alloys (AZ91 and QE22) and their various discontinuously reinforced composites in order to compare directly their creep resistance.