Abstract
In industry, efforts to achieve weight savings in automotive structures mean that aluminium alloys continue to attract attention as substitutes for iron and steel. For durability-related applications, it is important to determine the fatigue characteristics of candidate alloys, and to understand the microstructural basis of performance, in order to optimise material processing. This chapter focuses on the high-cycle (up to Nf>108–109) and low-cycle fatigue behaviour of Al–Si eutectic alloys produced by two different processes: continuous casting and extrusion. Crack initiation and growth mechanisms different from steels are necessary to understand the fatigue behaviour from low-cycle fatigue to very high-cycle fatigue. Different mechanisms of crack initiation and growth, that is shear mode crack initiation and growth in microstructure and opening mode crack initiation at the interface of Si-phase, influence fatigue life and fatigue strength.
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