Aiming to investigate the role and mechanism of nano MgO on the hot compressive deformation behavior of Mg alloys, the Mg-3Zn-0.2Ca alloy (MZC, in wt%) and the 0.2MgO/Mg-3Zn-0.2Ca alloy (MZCM, in wt%) were investigated systematically in the temperature range of 523–673 K and the strain rate range of 0.001–1 s−1. MZCM shows finer grains and second phase because of the refinement effects of added MgO. Flow behavior analysis shows that the addition of nano MgO promotes the dynamic

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... (DRX) of MZC. The flow stress of MZCM is lower than that of MZC during deformation at 523–623 K but exhibits a reverse trend at 673 K and 0.1–1 s−1. The constitutive analysis indicates that dislocation climb is the dominant deformation mechanism for MZC and MZCM. The addition of nano MgO particles decreases the stress sensitivity and deformation resistance for thermal deformation and improves the plasticity of the MZC. Besides, according to the processing map constructed at strains of 0.7 and corresponding microstructure evolution, MZCM exhibits higher power dissipation efficiency and smaller instability regions than MZC, and the optimum hot working condition for MZCM was determined to be at 623–653 K and 0.01–0.001 s−1.