Introduction:

Ultra-fine grained (UFG) materials possess many unusual properties such as high strength [1],
high stress fatigue life [2–4] and super-plastic deformation ability [5] at low temperature, etc.,
and thus have become one of the hot topics in the field of advanced structural materials [6]. At
present, among all of the methods to obtain the UFG materials, equal channel angular pressing
(ECAP) technique is especially attractive and has been widely applied to various metals and
alloys by many investigators [7] in the world.

Experiment:

The specimens for tensile tests were pressed for 2, 3, or 4 passes; while all the specimensfor
fatigue tests were pressed for 4 passes. Cyclic deformation was performed in push–pull mode on
a Shimadzu servo-hydraulic testing machine under constant plastic strain control at room
temperature in air. Most specimens were cycled to failure for the measurement of their fatigue
life. However, for some specimens, cyclic deformation was interrupted at different cycles, then
the surfaces of those specimens were observed under a Cambridge S360 scanning electron
microscope (SEM) to examine deformation morphology and fatigue-cracking features

Inferences:

The yield strength is about 142.2 MPa (2-pass ECAP) and 182.4 MPa (4-pass ECAP), respectively,
indicating that higher ECAP pass obviously increases the yield strength. Meanwhile, it is noted
that the elongation of 4-pass ECAP is a little bit higher than that of 2-pass ECAP. It indicates that,
at certain conditions, the yield strength and elongation of the Al–0.7 wt.% Cu alloy can be
enhanced simultaneously by ECAP treatment. the materials subjected to severe plastic
deformation usually contain a certain amount of dislocations and defects, most energy Wmean
will be used to drive the movement and annihilation of dislocations and defects, even grain
boundaries sliding and shear deformation rather than the temperature increase, during cyclic
deformation. However, the energy density Wmean of the materials without ECAP treatment is
usually used to produce more dislocations or defects during cyclic deformation. Therefore,
Emean does not produce a temperature increase T, but is used to drive the movement and
annihilation of dislocations. Accordingly

T can only be regarded as a qualitative parameter for describing the possibility of cyclic softening
or not in the UFG materials. In other words, the possible trend should be cyclic softening for the
ECAPed materials, and cyclic hardening for the ductile materials without ECAP treatment. Finally,
the reason for cyclic softening might be associated with the tensile stress–strain curve feature of
the UFG materials,
Initiation of fatigue cracks in materials with conventional grain (CG) size was investigated very
thoroughly in the past. There is an extensive knowledge on the localization of cyclic plasticity
and early crack development; however, it cannot be straightforwardly applied to the ultrafine-
grained (UFG) structures with the grain size below 1 ȝm, because the crack initiation
mechanisms are related to dislocation structures, which cannot develop in UFG materials simply
from the size reasons. The observations bring evidence that in the high-cycle fatigue (HCF)
region point defects generated by dislocation activity do play very important role in the fatigue
crack initiation process in UFG Cu. Fatigue cracks initiate in slip bands which form in areas of
near-by oriented grains and are characteristic by surface relief, consisting of extrusions and
intrusions. Point defects and formation of cavities and voids along the active slip planes governs
the HCF crack initiation. No grain coarsening and development of specific dislocation structure
was observed in the regions of crack initiation in UFG Cu. The mechanism of the crack initiation
in AZ91 alloy processed by ECAP was found to be similar to that known from CG alloy. The cracks
initiate in cyclic slip bands which forms in individual grains due to their relatively large grain size.
The initiated cracks propagate along the slip planes in a crystallographic way which corresponds
to the quasicleavage mechanism often reported for CG Mg alloys.

Fatigue strength of materials is determined by initiation and propagation of fatigue cracks. The
initiation represents the dominant part of the fatigue life, particularly in homogeneous materials
which are loaded in HCF region and which do not contain defects. The initiation of cracks takes
place in areas of localized cyclic plasticity, which manifest themselves by formation of slip
markings on material surface. That is why the mechanisms of localization of cyclic plasticity and
fatigue crack initiation have been studied since the beginning of the investigation of fatigue
damage one hundred years ago. Though very extensive and detailed knowledge of processes
resulting in development of fatigue cracks is available today, some aspects of crack initiation
mechanism are still not clear and are matter of discussion

Material and experiments :

Cu of commercial purity was processed by ECAP by 8 passes by the route Bc. The resulting grain
size (cell size) determined by transmission electron microcopy was 300 nm [6]. AZ91 magnesium
alloy was processed by 6 passes by the same route, however due to the limited plasticity of the
material the processing temperature was 573 K. The resulting microstructure was of bimodal
type, consisting of fine and large grained areas [7] with the grain size of about 3 and 10 ȝm.

The localization of the cyclic plasticity is very severe. It is concentrated in areas of grains with
small disorientation (near by oriented regions) [6]. The areas are fully covered with extrusions
and intrusions. The characteristic size of extrusions corresponds to the grain size of the UFG
material, i.e. it is of about 300 nm. The rest of the specimen surface does not exhibit any signs of
 the cyclic slip activity though the very high number of applied loading cycles. It important to
emphasize that the fraction of the surface covered with extrusions and intrusions is very small.
This is obvious evidence that the cyclic plasticity in the HCF region takes place only in minor
volume of material and thus it is highly localized. The damage is not related to any dynamic grain
coarsening. This is obviously in contradiction with the finding [10] that in UFG Cu fatigue damage
occurs in the form of macroscopic shear banding and is accompanied by formation of bimodal
structure consisting of locally coarsened grains in which the crack initiation can occur in the
same way as in the CG material. The observed formation of damage due to the cycling in the
form of concatenated voids located along the slip planes in the regions of near by oriented
grains is a witness for decisive role of point defects in the crack initiation process. The
production of point defects in cyclically deformed metals has been documented experimentally
by resistivity measurements some decades ago.

Conclusions:

For fatigue crack initiation in UFG Cu loaded in the high cycle region the role of point defects
generated by dislocation movement is crucial. Fatigue damage forms as concatenated rows of
cavities and elongated voids along the active slip planes in areas of near-by oriented grains. No grain
coarsening due to fatigue was observed. The initiation of cracks in magnesium AZ91 alloy processed
by ECAP takes place in individual large grains of the bimodal structure and resembles the mechanism
reported for conventionally grained alloy.
The paper is concerned with an analysis of utility and fatigue properties of industrially produced
aluminium alloy, specifically EN AW 6061 (AlMg1SiCu), reinforced with the particles of SiC. The
following properties were subject to evaluation: microstructure and sub-structure, mechanical
characteristics. All of these mechanical properties in pre- and post- equal channel angular
pressed (ECAP) state have been studied. The hardness was evaluated by Vickers hardness test at
the load of HV10. The significant part the thesis was devoted to the fatigue properties at cyclic
load in torsion. The presented results demonstrate well that the combination of fractography
and microscopy can give a significant contribution to the knowledge of initiation and
propagation crack in the aluminium alloy.

Aluminium alloys belong to the materials which are mostly used in aircraft and automotive
industry with a requirement for fatigue resistance of the material . Due to alloying, selected
aluminium alloys have a good formability, mechanical properties, weldability and corrosion
resistance, but on the other side, they have a low fatigue resistance . Fatigue damage makes
75% of all damages of the construction materials . The factors which influence fatigue resistance
of the material are type and frequency of load, treatment, shape, and surface quality or other
stress concentrators of material and influence of the environment where the material is located.
Most of the published articles dealt with fatigue properties during bending and tensile load.
Therefore, torsion fatigue properties of the alloys are analyzed in this article.

MATERIALS AND EXPERIMENTAL:

As experimental material was used, the aluminium alloy EN AW 6061 on the basic of ALMg1SiCu
which was reinforced by SiC particles. In the initial state, the alloy was treated with heat
treatment solution annealing and naturally aging. The alloy was then subjected to intensive
plastic deformation by heat treatment. It is possible to estimate that the mechanical properties
are most dependent on the intensity of plastic deformation (ECAP). The highest YS and UTS were
measured for EN AW 6061 after Equal Channel Angular Pressing, which led to the highest strain
hardening.

The observed dislocation density and grain size of materials confirmed the assumption that the
mechanical properties are highly dependent on the ECAP process. The highest dislocation
density and the lowest grain size were observed in post – ECAP state.

Fracture fatigue surface which can be divided into three characteristic areas: place of
initialization, stable crack growth, and final rupture. Initialization of the fracture started from the
surface of specimen and the crack growth continues in perpendicular direction of the specimen
axis. The morphology of fracture surface was observed as characterized dimples with local
presence of striation. Fine grained morphology was observed in the composite EN AW 6061.

Conlusion:

Treatment procedures and chemical composition of the three industrially fabricated aluminum
alloys caused to strong differences of strength properties (i.e. YS in the range from 185 to 281
MPa) and plasticity (7% to 12%). The highest crack initialization resistance was found out on the
alloy EN AW 6061 in ECAP state and the lowest in the composite EN AW 6061. 3. Fracture
surface is perpendicular of the load on the EN AW 6061 in ECAP state alloy and EN AW 6061 in
ECAP state alloy, too. Surface of fracture on the EN AW 6061 composite took place in the
direction of load axial. Advances in Science and Technology Research Journal Vol. 9 (28), 2015 60
4. The flat fracture with dimples and local presence of striations was observed on the EN AW
6061 alloys. The composite EN AW 6061 had highly fractal fracture with fine grained
morphology. 5. The grain size and dislocation density of aluminium alloys were observed by TEM
and the observation proved that the mechanical properties (especially YS/UTS) of alloys are
most dependent on the treatment