Qualification of uniform fatigue damage tolerance law for additively manufactured and cast Al-Si alloys

Abstract

The demand on lightweight structures and materials are steadily growing in automotive and aerospace industries. Hypo-eutectic Al-Si alloys are promising candidates due to its high specific material strength and corrosion resistance. Near net shape manufacturing by additive manufacturing (AM) or castings allow a high resource efficiency. The complex geometries lead to a wide range of structural features due to process-induced variations in local cooling rate. Therefore, the relationships between structural characteristics (e.g. dendrites, grain, eutectic, porosity, lack of fusion) and fatigue behavior have to be understood to enable a lightweight and reliable design of Al-Si alloys. In this study, the effect of process and process-induced structural characteristics on stress-strain behavior (quasi-static, cyclic) and high cycle fatigue behavior were characterized. The specimens were processed by laser-based powder bed fusion (PBF-LB) and sand casting (SC) with variation in porosity and dendrite arm spacing. Hereby, the age-hardenable Al-Si alloys AlSi10Mg (AM, SC) and AlSi7Mg (SC) were investigated. AM batches were tested in as-built condition. All casting batches got a HIP densification and T6 heat treatment. The fatigue results were analyzed based on nominal stresses according to Woehler (S-N curve) and local stress intensity based on linear-elastic fracture mechanics (stress intensity factor) as well as elastic-plastic fracture mechanics (J integral). J integral based Shiozawa diagrams allowed a sufficient and uniform fatigue damage tolerance (FDT) assessment for all AM and SC alloys. Hereby, the FDT of Al-Si alloys were dominated by defects (size, position) and cyclic stress-strain behavior (yield strength, cyclic hardening).