Low-cycle fatigue life of SiC-particulate-reinforced Al-Si cast alloy composites with tensile mean strain effects

The low-cycle fatigue behaviour of a SiC-particulate-reinforced Al-Si cast alloy with two different volume fractions has been investigated under strain-controlled conditions with and without tensile mean strains. The composites and the unreinforced matrix alloy showed cyclic hardening behaviour. The composite having a higher volume fraction of the SiC particles exhibited a more pronounced strain-hardening rate. For the tensile mean strain tests, the initial high tensile mean stress relaxed to zero for the ductile Al-Si alloy, resulting in no influence of the tensile mean strain on the fatigue life of the matrix alloy. However, tensile mean strain for the composite caused tensile mean stresses and reduced the fatigue life. The pronounced effects of mean strain on the low-cycle fatigue life of the composite compared to the unreinforced matrix alloy were attributed to the initial large prestrain causing non-relaxing high tensile mean stress in the composite with limited ductility and cyclic plasticity. Fatigue damage parameter using strain energy density accounted for the mean stress effects quite satisfactorily. Predicted fatigue life using this damage parameter correlated fairly well with the experimental life within a factor of 3. Moreover, the fatigue damage parameter indicated the inferior life in the low-cycle regime and superior life in the high-cycle regime for the composite, compared to the unreinforced matrix alloy. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.