High Lightweight Potential of Ultrafine‐Grained Aluminum/Steel Laminated Metal Composites Produced by Accumulative Roll Bonding

Abstract

The focus of this paper is the designing of ultrafine-grained aluminum/steel laminated metal composites for innovative lightweight materials concepts used for cyclic loading. These ultrafine-grained composites are produced by the accumulative roll bonding process. Three different aluminum/steel composites are studied, where the position of the steel layers is varied, to investigate the influence of the layer architecture. The mechanical properties are measured in monotonic and cyclic three-point bending tests. The influence of the meso-and microstructure are intensively studied by scanning electron microscope observations. Furthermore, the internal stresses during elastic straining are calculated by a finite element simulation. In the composites, both monotonic and cyclic mechanical properties are strongly increased and are clearly higher as expected by a linear rule of mixtures of the constituent materials. This increase is particularly high for the fatigue properties resulting in a strongly enhanced specific fatigue limit of the composites.

About the Role of Interfaces on the Fatigue Crack Propagation in Laminated Metallic Composites

“…The superior performance is based on significant synergistic effects associated with strong inter-zone interaction/coupling in the heterostructured materials [ 1 ]. The synergistic effects can be attributed to local heterogeneities and local variations of mechanical behavior in, among others, multimodal [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ], gradient [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ], or laminated [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ] structures.…”

“…A recent study by Kümmel et al [ 46 ] provides a comprehensive overview on the potential of fatigue life enhancement in specifically tailored laminated metal composites by utilizing the inherent material inhomogeneity effects at the interfaces between dissimilar materials. An increase in fatigue life in LMC systems can be accomplished by (a) enhancing resistance against crack initiation based on load transfer from surface layers into adjacent stiffer layers (gradient in elastic properties at interfaces) [ 15 , 16 , 46 ], and (b) enhancing resistance against crack propagation based on toughening mechanisms at the interfaces (gradient in hardness and elastic properties at interfaces) [ 15 , 32 , 47 ].…”

The Role of Interfaces on the Deformation Mechanisms in Bimodal Al Laminates Produced by Accumulative Roll Bonding

“…Moreover, the process also allows for the design of a sheet architecture by varying stacking order, layer materials, layer thickness, and the number of interfaces. [17][18][19] Consequently, these laminates exhibit an UFG microstructure, combined with a layered structure on the meta-scale. Thus, the question arises, how do the different interfaces, i.e., the grain boundaries and the layer interfaces affect the mechanical properties and the deformation behavior.…”

Laminated TRIP/TWIP Steel Composites Produced by Roll Bonding

“…Majority of literature about roll bonding of metals is focused on the production of laminated non-ferrous materials such as aluminum [13][14][15][16][17][18] and copper [17] or laminated non-ferrous and ferrous composites, e.g., steel and aluminum [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. Only few papers are concerned with steel laminated composites.…”