Effects of microstructure and temperature on fatigue behavior of E319-T7 cast aluminum alloy in very long life cycles

X. Zhu, A. Shyam, J. W. Jones, H. Mayer, J. V. Lasecki, J. E. Allison

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

130 Scopus citations

Abstract

The effects of microstructure and temperature on the fatigue behavior of a commercial Al-Si-Cu alloy used in automotive engine components were investigated for lifetimes as long as 109 cycles using ultrasonic fatigue instrumentation operating at 20 kHz. The primary finding of this study is that the influence of microstructure on the cyclic properties is greater than the influence of the testing temperature. Fractographic studies indicated that most fatigue cracks initiate from microshrinkage pores located at or very near to the specimen surface, while a much smaller number of cracks initiate from twin boundaries. Increasing test temperature resulted in a modest decrease in endurance limit by about 12% from 20 to 150 °C, while a significant decrease in endurance limit by about 23% was observed from 150 to 250 °C at high number of cycles. Using fatigue data developed in this study, a statistical model, the random fatigue-limit model (RFL), was evaluated for its utility in estimating fatigue behavior in the gigacycle regime.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1566-1571
Number of pages6
JournalInternational Journal of Fatigue
Volume28
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2006
Externally publishedYes

Funding

Financial support provided by U.S. National Science Foundation (DMR 0211067) and Ford Motor Company is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Dr. J. Zindel and L. Godlewski for their assistance with the casting of the materials, Christopher J. Torbet for his technical assistance, Charles Annis and Carlos Engler for providing the RFL model program.

Keywords

  • Cast aluminum alloy
  • Fatigue
  • Frequency
  • Microstructure
  • Temperature

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