Fabrication of heat-treated nano-clay-composite for improving high-cycle fatigue properties of AlSiCu aluminum alloy under stress-controlled fully-reversed bending loads
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2020
Fabrication of heat-treated nano-clay-composite for improving high-cycle fatigue properties of AlSiCu aluminum alloy under stress-controlled fully-reversed bending loads
In the present article, a heat-treated nano-clay-composite was fabricated by stir-casting to improve high-cycle bending fatigue properties of AlSiCu aluminum alloys, which have been widely used in engine cylinder-heads. For such an objective, after ball milling of nano-clay-particles with micro-copper-particles, these coated particles were added to the aluminum melt and cylindrical specimens were stir-casted. Then, fully-reversed stress-controlled fatigue testing was performed on standard samples. In addition, the fracture surface was examined by the field-emission scanning electron microscopy to find failure mechanisms. Obtained results showed that reinforcements, including nano-clay-particles and the heat treatment increased the fatigue lifetime, at least 9%. Such an improvement in the fatigue lifetime was 125% under low values of the stress level. Due to have a proper distribution of nano-particles in the aluminum matrix, the scatter-band for the fatigue lifetime was narrower in the heat-treated nano-composite. The endurance fatigue limit was also improved 30% at 106 cycles, for the heat-treated nano-composite, comparing to the base material. The brittle fracture was observed due to have cleavage and quasi-cleavage marks on the fracture surface for both materials. Micro-cracks were initiated and propagated from Si and intermetallics phases.
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