In the present work, thermal and electrical conductivity measurement was conducted on the cast Mg–Zn–Al alloys (ZA alloys) in the wide composition range (1–6 wt-Zn, 1–10 wt-Al). For alloys with the same content of Zn, the thermal/electrical conductivity of ZA alloys decreased exponentially with Al composition without exception. For alloys with same Al content, variation of thermal/electrical conductivity showed a similar trend for most of the alloys except the case for 6 wt-Al, which followed ZA26>ZA36>ZA16>ZA56>ZA66. The microstructures of the selected alloy systems were investigated in detail, and the mechanism of thermal/electrical conductivity variation was thus proposed. The phase transformation with composition and the different effects of Zn and Al on the thermal/electrical conductivity of Mg alloys were believed as two controlling factors.
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