Effect of intermetallic particles and grain boundaries on short fatigue crack growth behaviour in a cast Al–4Cu–3Ni–0.7Si piston alloy

Mbuya, T.O.; Gu, Y.; Thomson, Rachel; Reed, Philippa A.S.

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Effect of intermetallic particles and grain boundaries on short fatigue crack growth behaviour in a cast Al–4Cu–3Ni–0.7Si piston alloy

journal contribution

posted on 2017-09-07, 14:01 authored by T.O. Mbuya, Y. Gu, Rachel ThomsonRachel Thomson, Philippa A.S. Reed

The short fatigue crack growth behaviour in a model cast aluminium piston alloy has been investigated. This has been achieved using a combination of fatigue crack replication methods at various intervals during fatigue testing and post-mortem analysis of crack profiles. Crack–microstructure interactions have been clearly delineated using a combination of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction. Results show that intermetallic particles play a significant role in determining the crack path and growth rate of short fatigue cracks. It is observed that the growth of short cracks is often retarded or even arrested at intermetallic particles and grain boundaries. Crack deflection at intermetallics and grain boundaries is also frequently observed. These results have been compared with the long crack growth behaviour of the alloy.

Funding

The ﬁrst author acknowledges the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment of the University of Southampton and the University of Nairobi for their ﬁnancial support when this work was carried out.

History

School

Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

Materials

Published in

Fatigue and Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures

Volume

40

Issue

9

Pages

1428 - 1442

Citation

MBUYA, T.O. ... et al, 2017. Effect of intermetallic particles and grain boundaries on short fatigue crack growth behaviour in a cast Al–4Cu–3Ni–0.7Si piston alloy. Fatigue and Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures, 40 (9), pp. 1428-1442.

Publisher

Version

AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2017-01-09

Publication date

2017

Notes

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: MBUYA, T.O. ... et al, 2017. Effect of intermetallic particles and grain boundaries on short fatigue crack growth behaviour in a cast Al–4Cu–3Ni–0.7Si piston alloy. Fatigue and Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures, 40 (9), pp. 1428-1442, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/ffe.12586. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.