Fatigue life evaluation of an ultrafine-grained pure aluminum

Abstract

The aim of this study is an experimental and numerical investigation of the fatigue behavior of a notched ultrafine-grained pure aluminum processed by strip cyclic extrusion-compression method. In this regard, the fatigue experiments were conducted for the unprocessed and strip cyclic extrusion-compression processed specimens under various cyclic loads. In the numerical analyses, a dislocation dynamic constitutive material model which tracks the microstructure evolution was implemented for numerical estimation of the values of fatigue strength reduction factor via the volumetric approach. Considering the three-dimensional effect near the plate hole, the variation of the fatigue notch factor through the thickness of the plate was investigated and the obtained results showed that maximum fatigue strength reduction factor was occurred in the middle of the plate due to the symmetry of specimen geometry and loading condition. The investigation reveals a good agreement between the numerical and experimental lives. The results showed although the smooth processed specimens have higher fatigue strength in comparison of the unprocessed ones, the notched processed specimens have lower fatigue strength in comparison of the unprocessed ones.