Ultrasonic fatigue of E319 cast aluminum alloy in the long lifetime regime.

摘要

The fatigue behavior of an E319 cast aluminum alloy used in the production of automotive cylinder heads, was studied by using both ultrasonic and conventional fatigue techniques in order to understand the potential effect of frequency on fatigue behavior of cast aluminum alloys. The effect of frequency, environment and temperature on S-N behavior, fatigue crack initiation and propagation behavior of E319 cast aluminum alloy was investigated. It was observed that, at room temperature, in the lifetime regime of less than 107 cycles, fatigue lives at 20 kHz are approximately five to ten times longer than fatigue lives at 75 Hz; while at 107 cycles, the effect of frequency is substantially reduced. At elevated temperature (150 and 250°C), however, the difference in fatigue lives between 20 kHz and 75 Hz persists over the entire range of stress examined. The effect of frequency on fatigue resistance is attributable to an environmental effect on fatigue crack growth rate at all temperatures. For E319 cast aluminum alloy, fatigue crack growth rates increase with increasing water exposure, P/f, which can be estimated by a modified superposition model. Fatigue resistance decreased with increasing temperature and the temperature dependence of fatigue strength at 108 cycles follows closely the temperature dependence of yield and tensile strength. The effect of temperature on fatigue resistance primarily results from the intrinsic effect of temperature on Young's modulus and yield strength. The environmental contribution to fatigue crack growth rates modestly decreases with increasing temperature.;At room temperature, an endurance limit is demonstrated in the lifetime regime beyond 107 cycles and the fatigue strength at 10 8 cycles was investigated using the ultrasonic fatigue technique. The fatigue strength is correlated with both size and location of the initiating pores through a threshold stress intensity factor for fatigue crack growth. A probabilistic model was developed to establish the relationship between the casting porosity population and the fatigue strength of the alloy. Based on this model, the influence of mean pore size, standard deviation and number density of the porosity population, and the specimen volume and shape on the fatigue strength was described.