Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115– 126

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Experimental study of porosity and its relation to fatigue

mechanisms of model Al–Si7–Mg0.3 cast Al alloys
J-Y. Buffière a,*, S. Savelli b, P.H. Jouneau a, E. Maire a, R. Fougères a
a
GEMPPM UMR, CNRS 5510, INSA, Lyon, 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex, France
b
Pechiney CRV Parc Economique, Centr’Alp, Voreppe BP 27 38340, France

Received 17 November 2000; received in revised form 14 February 2001

Abstract

The microstructure and fatigue properties of three model AS7G03 cast aluminium alloys containing artificial pores have been
studied. Synchrotron X-ray tomography has been used to characterise in three dimensions the pore population in the alloys. The
development of fatigue cracks in relation with local crystallography has been studied by means of electron back scattered
diffraction (EBSD). Both the average number of cycles to failure and the lifetime scatter depend on the pore content specially at
high stress level. The mechanism leading to the initiation of a crack from a pore has been identified. The crack propagation at
high stress level appears to be quite insensitive to microstructural barriers and can be reasonably well described by a Paris type
law. At low stresses, however, short cracks are often observed to be stopped at grain boundaries and the fatigue life is no longer
predicted by a simple propagation law. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Electron back scattered diffraction; Fatigue; Porosity; X-ray tomography; Crack

1. Introduction pore independently of the loading conditions and of the

Cast aluminium alloys can be easily processed for
manufacturing objects with an intricate shape. How-
ever, because aluminium contracts when it solidifies,
and, also, because hydrogen dissolves very easily in the
molten metal, cast aluminium alloys always contain a
certain amount of porosity when no special casting
technique is being used. This porosity has a detrimental
influence on the mechanical properties of the material.
For instance, in the case of the AS7G03 alloy studied
here, it has been shown [1] that 1% volume fraction
porosity can lead to a reduction of 50% of the fatigue
life and 20% of the endurance limit compared with the
same alloy with a similar microstructure but showing
no pores. As a result, a considerable amount of re-
search has been carried out on the fatigue mechanisms
in cast aluminium alloys in relation with porosity.
Those mechanisms can be roughly summarised as
follow: in almost all cases, fatigue cracks initiate on a
* Corresponding author. Tel.: + 33-472-438854; fax: +33-472-
438539.
E-mail address: buffiere@insa-lyon.fr (J.-Y. Buffière).
stress [2–6]. Almost all pores leading to crack initiation
are located at the surface of the material or just beneath
it [6–9].
The number of cycles necessary to initiate a crack
depends on the loading conditions; it generally ranges
from almost 0% (quasi immediate initiation) [6,9] to less
than 10% of the fatigue life [10]. The detailed mecha-
nisms of the initiation of a crack from a pore are
however still not well elucidated.
After the initiation stage, the crack propagation
chronology can be divided schematically in four steps:
(i) interdendritic crack propagation alternatively in the
a matrix or along the Si particles/matrix interfaces
[11 –13]. (ii) intradendritic crack propagation [5]; (iii)
rapid interdendritic propagation with silicon particle
damage ahead of the crack tip [14,15] and final rupture.
When the crack is small and still in the neighbourhood
of the pore it is sometimes observed to slow down or
stop with a spatial frequency close to the dendrite arm
spacing (DAS) [16]. For longer cracks (typically with a
size above 200 mm [7]) the crack growth rate is found
similar to that of long cracks observed for instance
during compact test (CT) fatigue tests.

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116 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126
Various metallurgical factors others than porosity
have been observed to influence the fatigue properties of
cast Al alloys like the refinement of the DAS [2,8], the
presence of intermetallic particles [4,17,18], the material
heat treatment [19]. It must be pointed out that the effect
of grain size on fatigue properties of cast alloys has been
very poorly studied although it is now recognised that
grain boundaries play a major role on the crack growth
rate in wrought alloys [20– 23].
From this literature review, it appears that, in cast Al
alloys, porosity is the key factor which controls the
fatigue properties. Thus, any attempt for modelling and
predicting the cyclic properties of such material requires
a thorough characterisation of the pore population in the
material. For the moment such a characterisation is
carried out by means of two dimensional (2D) metallo-
graphic sections from which the actual three dimensional
(3D) sizes and shapes of pores are very difficult to
determine. Besides, only little attention has been paid, so
far, to the relation between fatigue mechanisms and the
local microstructure such as grain boundaries, eutectic
particles or the local crystallographic orientation.
The recent development of electron back scattered
diffraction (EBSD) technique has enabled the character-
isation of the effect of local texture on the short fatigue
crack growth [21]. Besides, high resolution X-ray tomog-
raphy using synchrotron X-ray sources can now be used
to obtain 3D images of internal defects such as pores or
cracks with a resolution in the micrometer range [24]. In
this paper, both techniques are combined in order to
investigate the fatigue mechanisms of a model cast Al
alloy containing different porosity levels. From the 3D
images of the material obtained by tomography, exper-
imental pore distributions are determined and correlated
with fatigue tests results. The initiation and propagation
of fatigue cracks are studied in detail. A mechanism for
the initiation of a crack from a pore is described.
Eventually, the retardation of cracks by grain boundaries
is shown experimentally through a detailed analysis of
the local texture by EBSD.
2. Experimental procedure
2.1. Material
Three model AS7G03 cast alloys with different con-
tents of artificial pores have been used in this study. The
Table 1
Chemical composition of the studied alloys (wt.%)
Si Fe Mg
6.6–7.0 0.09–0.14 0.29–0.34
chemical composition, shown in Table 1, was common
for the three alloys which were chill mould cast in a
silicon carbide (SiC) mold. The artificial pores were
obtained by introducing at 1093 K a mixture of hydrogen
(H2) and argon (Ar) gases in the liquid metal through a
propeller. The solubility of hydrogen being an increasing
function of temperature, a part of the gas content was
rejected (degassing) during the solidification and formed
artificial gas pores. Three different H2/Ar ratio (2%, 7%
and 10%) were used giving different pore contents and
sizes in the alloys which will be referred to as alloys A,
B and C, respectively. After cooling, the alloys were
solution treated during 10 h at 813 K, quenched in cold
water, and aged during 6 h at 333 K (T6 heat treatment).
The microstructure of the alloys before testing has been
characterised using optical microscopes (OM) but also
scanning and transmission electron microscopies (SEM
and TEM).
2.2. X ray tomography and radiography
High resolution X-ray tomography was performed on
the ID 19 beamline at the European Synchrotron Radi-
ation Facility (ESRF), in Grenoble, France. It had been
shown previously that this non-destructive technique
provides reliable 3D images of internal pores in the
studied material [25]. The principle and specificity of the
tomography technique using synchrotron radiation and
some recent applications to the characterisation of struc-
tural materials can be found elsewhere [26], and only the
main experimental details are reported here. The chosen
energy was 23 keV. The investigated samples were small
cylindrical samples (3 mm in diameter) with no polishing
of the surface. For each sample, 600–900 2D projections
were recorded on a 1024×1024 CCD camera developed
at ESRF and set at 80 cm behind the sample. Those
projections were used to reconstruct numerical images of
the samples using a classical filtered back projected
algorithm. The resolution of the technique, i.e. the
volume of the smallest element (voxel) in the recon-
structed 3D images was in that case (6.65 mm)3. The
volume of material investigated with this technique was
around 30 mm3.
A dedicated software performing 3D image analysis
developed at the LISA laboratory in Lyon was used to
study the pore population for the three alloys. The grey
level images obtained after reconstruction were
Ti Sb Cr Others
0.11–0.14 0.12–0.14 0.2 B0.01
 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126
thresholded, in order to separate the pores from the rest
of the material. The resulting binary images were auto-
matically analysed, giving the concentration of pores in
the studied block as well as individual parameters such
as volume, surface, aspect ratios, axis of inertia, etc.
For alloy A, plain numerical 2D radiographs were
also recorded (using the same specimen geometry) to
investigate a larger volume of material and increase the
probability of encountering large pores in the specimen.
The resolution of those numerical radiographs was 6.65
mm. With this technique, the investigated volume in-
creased to 1000 mm3.
2.3. Mechanical testing and characterisation
Hour glass shaped specimens with a 24 mm2 cross
section have been used to perform constant stress am-
plitude tests on an INSTRON 8516 servo-hydraulic
fatigue machine. The tests were carried out at room
temperature using a frequency of 10 Hz and a load
ratio R= 0.1. Before testing, the samples flat faces were
mechanically polished using SiC sand paper (down to
2400 grit) and diamond paste (3 and 1 mm). The stress
levels investigated ranged from 240 MPa down to 130
MPa. For each stress level either five or four specimens
were tested. After testing, the fracture surfaces of the
broken specimens were studied by SEM in the sec-
ondary electron mode.
In order to investigate the crack initiation and propa-
gation mechanisms, the surface of some specimens was
characterised by OM during the fatigue tests. This was
done in the unloaded state by removing the sample
from the tensile rig. The examination were carried out
after 1000 cycles, 10 000 cycles and then every 25 000
cycles. Such tests were interrupted when a main crack
had attained a size sufficient to be in the long crack
regime (typically 400 mm) where it became quite insensi-
tive to microstructural effects.
The local crystallographic structure around cracks
was studied by EBSD in a scanning electron micro-
scope (see for example [27] for a review of this tech-
nique). Two microscopes were used for this work. The
first one was a Philips XL30 fitted with a Schottky field
emission gun (FEG). A silicon intensified target camera
was used to record Kikuchi patterns on the phospho-
rous screen, and the indexation was carried out with the
‘Orientation Imaging Microscopy’ software from
TexSEM Laboratories [28,29]. The second microscope
was a JEOL 840A LGS fitted with a tungsten filament,
a CCD camera, and the ‘CHANNEL’ software from
HKL Technology for the automatic acquisition and
indexation of Kikuchi patterns. Orientation data have
been analysed with a home build software [30].
In both microscopes, an accelerating voltage of 30
kV was used, and the probe current was usually chosen
117
to be around 40 nA. In these conditions, the probe
diameter is about a few nanometers, with an interaction
volume underneath the specimen surface of the order of
1 m3. The spatial resolution for aluminium samples was
about 1 m, and the angular resolution for the crystallo-
graphic orientations measurement was about 1°. The
FEG microscope provides the advantages of a more
stable probe current, and of a slightly better spatial
resolution. A sample preparation was also needed for
EBSD analysis in order to remove the plastically de-
formed layer induced by mechanical polishing. This was
done by an electrochemical etching of the surface, using
a Struers Lectropol equipment and a Struers A2
solution.
Finally a smaller (9 mm2 section) fatigue specimen
has been characterised in tomography. It has been
subsequently fatigued at 145 MPa during 233 000 cycles
and the initiation and propagation of fatigue cracks at
its surface has been studied by optical microscopy as
described above.
3. Results
3.1. Microstructural characterisation
The microstructure common to the three alloys con-
sist in aluminium a dendrites separated by eutectic
zones containing silicon particles (cf. Fig. 1). The mean
value of the DAS for the three alloys is 30 mm. The
silicon particles have an average size (deduced from
optical 2D measurements) of 3.1 mm. TEM observa-
tions show that those particles are polycrystalline and
that the interface with the a matrix contains no sec-
ondary phase. Some iron based intermetallic particles
are also observed; they appear to play no role in the
crack initiation or propagation because of the low iron
content of the alloy.
The grain structure of the alloys has been studied
from EBSD observations and also from optical micro-
graphs. In the latter case, the surface of the material
was put into contact with gallium at room temperature.
The mechanical effect of a further mechanical polishing
resulted in some decohesions at the grain boundaries
which were therefore easy to observe. The grains were
observed to be dendritic in nature with a random
texture. Only a few fine pure eutectic grains (:3 mm)
could be observed; the majority of those grains growing
in epitaxy with the dendritic ones. The mean grain size
at the sample surface was found equal to 310 mm with
a standard deviation of 122 mm.
As already mentioned, pores represent a major mi-
crostructural feature of the material. On the basis of the
3D tomographic images of the material, a quantitative
118 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126

Fig. 1. Optical micrograph of the microstructure of alloy A.

Fig. 2. Classification of the pores in the three studied alloys ( , alloy A; , alloy B; × , alloy C) as a function of their equivalent size u and
their sphericity s (see the text for the definitions of these quantities). The 3D volume rendering of some typical pores have been added.

study of the pore sizes and shapes has been carried
out for the three alloys. Two geometric parameters,
the equivalent size and the sphericity have been
defined to help classifying the pores. The equivalent
size l corresponds to the diameter of a sphere having
the same volume as the studied pore and the spheric-
ity s is a normalised ratio between the pore surface
and its volume (1\s \0 with s tending to 0 when the
pore shape gets tortuous) [25]. A classification of the
pores using those two parameters is shown in Fig. 2.
This figure shows that two populations of pores
co-exist in the material. The first one, containing a
majority of pores with an equivalent size lower than
50 mm, exhibits a weak correlation between size and
sphericity and is almost equally represented, in terms
of volume fraction, for the three alloys. Those pores
correspond very probably to micro-shrinkages which
appear at the end of the solidification. The second
population, containing pores with sizes larger than 50
mm shows a strong correlation between size and
sphericity: the larger the size, the lower the sphericity.
Their volume fraction increases with the amount of
hydrogen introduced in the liquid metal. They corre-
spond to artificial pores appearing during the whole
solidification process. Their growth is geometrically
hindered by the solidifying dendrites and this results,
for the larger ones, in a very tortuous shape (low
sphericity). The volume fraction of those pores in-
creases exponentially with the H2 content as already
observed in the literature [31].
 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126
Almost all the pores are intergranular; only a few
small ones are purely intragranular, at least at the
surface of the material. The number of grain boundaries
starting from the surface of a pore increases with the
pore size. Besides, the convex parts of the pores are in
all cases associated with Si eutectic particles (see Fig.
3a), and also with at least one grain boundary. This
typical arrangement of pores, Si particles and grain
boundaries, represented schematically in Fig. 3b, will be
shown to be of crucial importance with respect to the
crack initiation mechanisms.
Fig. 3. Typical spatial arrangements of Si eutectic particles with
respect to pores. (a) SEM micrograph of the interior of a pore
showing the Si eutectic particles (arrow) located in the convex parts
of the pores. (b) Schematic 2D illustration of this arrangement. Grain
boundaries have been added.
Fig. 4. S – N curves of alloys A, B and C alloys (, alloy A; , alloy
B;
, alloy C). Although the same stress levels have been used for the
three alloys the points on the graph have been slightly shifted along
the stress axis for the sake of clarity. The slopes of the curves for
alloys A, B and C are respectively: − 0.131, − 0.168 and − 0.158.
119
Fig. 5. Optical micrograph of the surface of a sample of alloy C after
15 000 cycles at 160 MPa showing the initiation of a crack by
decohesions of Si/Al interfaces (arrows) at the vicinity of the convex
part of a pore (not entirely visible).
3.2. Fatigue tests
The pseudo Wöhler curves obtained for alloys A, B
and C are shown on Fig. 4. In all cases, a non linear
increase of the logarithm of the mean fatigue lives is
observed when the stress amplitude decreases. More
precisely, for a given stress level (between 240 and 130
MPa), the mean value of the number of cycles to failure
decreases when the amount of gas introduced in the
alloy increases. Regarding the scatter on the fatigue
lives, it increases when the stress level decreases, for all
alloys. Finally, for a given stress level, the scatter
increases when the gas content decreases. Those results
clearly indicate that the number of pores per unit
volume and the pore size distribution are major factors
which control the fatigue life and its scatter.
3.3. Crack initiation
The fractographic analysis of the broken samples
reveals in nearly all cases that the crack responsible for
the final fracture initiates from at least one pore located
at the surface of the specimen or just below it. In some
rare cases (high stress levels, 240 MPa) crack initiation
can occur by the decohesion of internal Si particles
probably located within a grain boundary. By studying
carefully the fracture surface near the pores responsible
for the rupture by SEM or by OM, it appears that crack
initiation (defined here as a visible crack in the a
matrix) is induced by a decohesion at the Si particle/ma-
trix interface. In most cases, this decohesion occurs on
Si particles located very close to one convex part of a
pore lying nearly perpendicular to the applied stress. A
typical example of such a decohesion and the resulting
crack is shown on Fig. 5. At low and high stress levels
the number of cycles necessary to initiate such cracks is
always negligible with respect to the fatigue life (B2%).
120 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126
The presence of a grain boundary favours crack
initiation. This point is illustrated on Fig. 6 which
shows a micrograph of a pore (called P1) which has
initiated a crack. By analysing the EBSD image of the
same zone it is found that the crack initiated on the side
of the pore which contains a grain boundary (almost
perpendicular to the stress direction). Once initiated,
this crack quickly propagated along the grain boundary
(initiation and propagation within 10 000 cycles=3%
of the life time); then it stopped until the end of the test
when the grain boundary orientation changed and be-
came less favourable with respect to the applied stress.
A small intragranular pore not visible on the optical
micrograph (called P2) located nearby as well as the
other — transgranular — side of pore P1, did not
initiate any crack during the test.
3.4. Crack propagation
The observed propagation mechanisms of fatigue
cracks can be divided in two different regimes corre-
sponding to high (240 MPa) and low (200 MPa and
lower) stress levels.
At high stress, the cracks propagate in the material
with no visible stop at microstructural barriers and the
fatigue lives can be well predicted by a Paris law as it
will be shown later in this paper.
At low stress levels, once initiated, the cracks propa-
gate very rapidly along eutectic zones up to a size of
Fig. 6. (a) Optical micrograph of a crack (arrow) at the surface of a
sample of alloy C fatigue cycled at 160 MPa. (b) EBSD image of the
corresponding zone (note the different scales). The crack initiated
from the pore labelled P1 is located in a well oriented grain boundary
with respect to the stress (nearly 90°). No crack could be seen on the
grain boundary almost parallel to the stress direction on the other
side of P1 nor near the pore P2 (not visible on the micrograph) which
is transgranular.
10–20 mm and stop. Only a small proportion of those
cracks manage to grow further. When this happens the
crack growth is discontinuous with rather frequent
stops which can last several thousand cycles. Between
those stops the crack growth rate at the sample’s sur-
face can be larger or smaller than that observed for
longer cracks with the same stress intensity factor DK.
The stops observed for short cracks can be correlated
with the presence of grain boundaries. This is illustrated
in Fig. 7 which shows an optical micrograph (Fig. 7a)
of a crack observed at the surface of a sample of alloy
C during 360 000 cycles. At least three stops were
observed for this crack corresponding to nearly 100 000
cycles (Fig. 7b). The EBSD technique was used to
analyse the same zone as the one observed in optical
microscopy and revealed (Fig. 7c) that the stops corre-
sponded to grain boundaries. More precisely, the whole
propagation of this crack can be described as follow:
first the crack propagated in an intergranular mode and
remained stopped at 3% of the fatigue life (point W on
the micrograph). Between 3 and 8% of the fatigue life,
the crack bifurcated and propagated again in the trans-
granular mode. This bifurcation at point W did not
occur from the very tip of the crack but from a point
behind it, maybe because of the formation of a sub
surface transgranular crack. Then the crack stopped at
point X which corresponded to a grain boundary. After
50 000 cycles the crack propagated again in a transgran-
ular mode with a slight slow down apparently trans-
granular at point Y. No noticeable stop was detected
when the crack met the next grain boundary, which was
in fact a triple grain boundary junction, but immedi-
ately after, the crack was stopped again at another
grain boundary (point Z) during 25 000 cycles. At that
stage, the crack propagation was screened by the prop-
agation of another crack in the sample which eventually
led to fracture. This behaviour was very typical of the
crack propagation in the studied material and has been
observed several times. It must be pointed out also that,
in many cases, a plastic zone ahead of the blocked
crack could be observed by optical microscopy in the
adjacent grain.
3.5. Correlation between pore characteristics and
fatigue mechanisms
In order to investigate a possible relation between the
pore geometrical characteristics and the initiation or
propagation of cracks, a sample of alloy C was charac-
terised by X-ray tomography. The crack initiation and
propagation at the surface was studied by optical mi-
croscopy during 233 000 cycles of fatigue at 145 MPa.
However, those cracks were not visible in tomography.
The studied sample contained 34 pores located at the
surface or just below. The majority of the studied pores
(85%) initiated a crack. From the 3D data available for
each pore, a stress intensity factor K was calculated by
 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126 121

Fig. 7. (a) Optical micrograph of a crack at the surface of a sample of alloy C after 360 000 cycles at 160 MPa; (b) EBSD image showing the same
zone as in (a); (c) Length of the crack shown in (a) as a function of the number of cycles. Several stops indicated by letters (W, X,Y and Z) have
been observed during the propagation of the crack and could be correlated with the presence of grain boundaries (different grey levels).

considering the pore as a crack and by taking into
account its maximum width X measured at the surface
and its maximum depth Y perpendicular to the surface
(K proportional to |local[(XY)1/2]1/2 cf. Fig. 8b).
Regarding the crack initiation, the results shown on
Fig. 8a, indicate that the probability of initiating a crack
from a pore is not obviously correlated with the stress
intensity factor defined above or with a stress criterion.
As a matter of fact, some pores located near the heads
of the specimen with an applied stress as low as 45 MPa
have been observed to initiate a crack. Finally, it was
found that pores with an equivalent size lower than 50
mm did not initiate any crack [32].
Regarding the propagation of cracks, Fig. 8a shows
that the ability of a crack to propagate away from a pore
is also apparently not correlated with the stress level
around the pore nor with the associated stress intensity
factor. 3D images also reveal (see Fig. 9) that non
propagating cracks always have a size (measured at the
surface by OM) smaller than the pore from which they
initiate. In other words, only propagating cracks manage
to reach a size larger than (or comparable to) that of the
pore from which they initiate.
4. Discussion
4.1. Crack initiation
The mechanisms leading to the initiation of a crack
from a pore have been identified. For the alloys investi-
gated here those mechanisms are the same at high and
low stresses. Namely, the application of a cyclic stress on
the material induces some decohesions between the Si
eutectic particles and the surrounding Al– a matrix.
Those decohesions rapidly lead to a small crack in the
aluminium phase. At least two factors can account for
the decohesions. First, the elastic and plastic incompat-
ibilities existing between the hard and brittle Si particle
and the ductile aluminium matrix and, second, the
location of the Si particles near the convex parts of pores
which act as stress concentrators (see Fig. 3).
122 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126

Moreover, as observed experimentally, the presence 4.2. Crack propagation

of a suitabily orientated grain boundary (Fig. 6) is a
microstructural factor which promotes the initiation of
a crack from a pore, according to the mechanism
described above. Indeed, a grain boundary induces a
plastic incompatibility which is superimposed to that
existing between the matrix and the Si particle. Also,
some gain in surface energy can be obtained for the
nucleation of a crack in a grain boundary. It must be
remembered that all large pores are intergranular thus
the probability to initiate a crack from such defects is
high, in agreement with the experimental observations.
The fact that small pores (with an equivalent size lower
than 50 mm) did not initiate any crack could be due
either to a higher probability of being transgranular or
to a lower stress concentration effect.
At low stresses, once initiated, many cracks have
been observed to stop rapidly with no further propaga-
tion. The possible mechanisms which could account for
such stops are discussed in what follows.
No correlation could be found between the ability of
a crack to propagate and the stress levels around the
pore or the stress intensity factors calculated from the
pore size taking into account the depth of the pore.
This indicates clearly that the classical approach which
treats pores as pre existing cracks of similar geometrical
dimensions was not valid in our case.
A pore with a very complex shape (low sphericity)
could result in a high (or a low) value of the local stress
intensity factor which cannot obviously be calculated

Fig. 8. (a) Classification of the pores observed by tomography at the surface of a sample of alloy C fatigue tested during 233 000 cycles. For each
pore, the effective stress level has been indicated as well as an equivalent stress intensity factor K calculated from the X transversal and Y
longitudinal dimensions of the pore. For each pore the different symbols indicate if no crack initiation (), a non propagating crack ( ) or a
propagating crack () were observed. (b) Definitions of X and Y on a 3D volume rendering of one pore.
 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126 123

Fig. 9. (a) Classification of the pores observed by tomography at the surface of a sample of alloy C fatigue tested during 233 000 cycles. For each
pore, the ratio between the lateral size Lc of the crack at the surface (including the pore) and the maximum lateral dimension of the pore below
the surface Lp obtained by tomography has been indicated. The different symbols indicate if a non propagating crack ( ×) or a propagating crack
() were observed. (b) Definitions of Lp and Lc parameters. In black: the pore intersection with the sample surface. In grey a projection of the
3D shape of the pore below the surface.

precisely using the X and Y dimensions defined in Fig.
8. The measure of the 3D radius of curvature at the
surface of such pores could in principle give more
accurate values of stress intensity factors. However, the
resolution of the tomography images (6.65 mm)3 was too
low to obtain reliable data.
Following the same idea, complementary Finite Ele-
ment calculations have been used to investigate numeri-
cally a possible effect of the pore shape on the local
stress concentration coefficients. It was found that a
pore with a complex shape leads to a stress intensity
factor which is nearly the same (10% difference) as the
stress intensity factor of a simple equivalent ellipse
exhibiting the same projected lateral size and the same
local radius of curvature. Thus, a shape effect is quite
unlikely to explain the observed crack propagation/
stop.
Similar stops have already been reported for natu-
rally occurring cracks in nodular cast iron [33,34]. In
this material, the nodules can be treated as holes be-
cause their interfaces with the matrix are weak. Cracks
initiate at the intersection of the graphite nodules with
the surface because the stress concentration is higher in
this region [33]. Very often, those cracks are observed to
stop in the vicinity of the nodules. It has been verified
experimentally by serial polishing that the shape of the
stopped crack corresponded to a 3D equilibrium shape
for which the stress intensity factor is roughly constant
along the crack path [35] and lower than the propaga-
tion threshold for long cracks. According to the same
authors this ‘three dimensional effect’ can also occur, in
nodular cast iron, for cracks which are initiated on
micro-shrinkage pores.
Using similar arguments, it is believed that, in the
case of the cast alloy studied here, almost all pores
cutting the surface are likely to initiate a crack because
of the high value of the local stress intensity factor at
the intersection between the pore and the surface. This
is in agreement with our experimental observations
showing that nearly all pores initiate a crack even at
very low stress levels. However, for the reasons men-
tioned above, most of the resulting cracks tend to stop
rapidly when a 3D equilibrium shape is reached (de-
crease of the stress intensity factor at the surface). It is
believed that this shape does not result in a stress
intensity factor high enough for propagation unless if
some microstructural factor can favour the propagation
as discussed in the following paragraph. Unfortunately,
it was not possible to visualise the 3D shapes of the
stopped cracks directly because they were not visible on
the reconstructed 3D images. Further tomography ex-
periments at ESRF using a 1 mm resolution and a larger
(2000*2000 pixels) CCD camera are currently being
planned to investigate this point.
Finally, as shown above, the local crystallography
around the pores plays an important role on the crack
propagation. For the cracks which managed to escape
‘their’ pore a careful investigation of the local crystal-
lography by EBSD revealed that, from the beginning,
many of them were located in a well orientated grain
boundary which has eased their propagation. If the
grain boundary changed direction of if a triple grain
boundary junction was reached the crack might stop.
124 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126
The presence of a grain boundary not visible at the
surface might also cause the crack to slow down or
even to stop as already reported elsewhere [36].
In any case, it must be remembered that, even at
low stresses, the fatigue life of a sample mostly con-
sisted in a propagation stage of one main crack.
Hence, an estimation of the fatigue life of the mate-
rial has been calculated through the fatigue crack
growth rate da/dN using a simple Paris law:
da DK m
=C . (1)
dN (1−R)Kf −DK
In this equation R is the load ratio, R =0.1, m and
C are two material dependent constants m = 2.94,
C= 2.9 ×10 − 9 Kf is the critical stress intensity factor,
Kf = 41.5 MPa m1/2, and DK is the classical stress
intensity range. This law has been used previously in
the literature to describe successfully the fatigue be-
haviour of a cast aluminium alloy similar to the one
studied here [37] and has been verified experimentally,
on average, on our measurements.
The initial size a0 of the crack leading to failure
has been measured by SEM on the fracture surface of
the broken samples. It is equal to the geometrical
mean of the transversal and lateral dimensions of the
initiating pore with respect to the surface. The size of
the critical crack ac leading to fracture is taken equal
to 2 mm. This last value has little influence on the
calculated fatigue lives. The stress intensity factor
range DK is calculated by assuming the initial pore/
crack to be a semi circular notch of radius a cutting
the surface of the sample.
The fatigue lives calculated from Eq. (1) are shown
in Fig. 10. They are in good agreement with the ex-
perimental data at high stresses (|=240 MPa) where
the crack propagation is quite insensitive to the mi-
crostructure. At lower stresses, however, the calcula-
Fig. 10. Comparison between experimental (Nexp) and calculated
(Ncalc) number of cycles to failure (2, D|= 240 MPa;
, D|= 200
MPa; , D|= 160 MPa; , D|= 130 MPa). The straight line
indicates the locus of the points where Nc = Nexp. Full and hollow
symbols indicate the values calculated with Eq. (1) and with the Paris
law expression given in [38], respectively.
tion clearly underestimates the experimental values
and the gap between experiments and predictions in-
creases when the stress decreases. In order to assess
the influence of the Paris law formulation on the fa-
tigue life calculation, a different expression suggested
recently [38] has been used. The parameters of this
law have been determined on the basis of the experi-
mental fatigue lives measured at 240 MPa. The re-
sults of this calculation are shown in Fig. 10. The
same trend as with Eq. (1) is observed for the calcu-
lated and experimental fatigue lives: good agreement
at high stress levels, maximum disagreement at low
stress levels.
Various factors including crack closure could ac-
count for this discrepancy. However, in our case, due
to both the value of the stress ratio used, and,
mainly, to our experimental observations, it is be-
lieved that the crack stops at grain boundaries is the
main factor which account for the underestimation of
the fatigue lives through Paris laws. As an example, it
was observed [32] that for fatigue cracks initiating on
small pores (DK lower than the case shown on Fig. 7)
crack stops can account for 90% of the fatigue life at
130 MPa (nominal stress).
As a matter of fact, the influence of grain
boundaries on crack propagation has already been re-
ported in the literature for steels [36,39] and alu-
minium [21,23,40]. The physical processes explaining
how a crack can cross a grain boundary are still
unclear. One possible mechanism is the activation of
dislocation sources in the adjacent grain and the cre-
ation of a new micro crack by irreversible accumula-
tion of dislocations in that grain. This is in agreement
with our experimental observations of plastic zones in
the neighbouring grain ahead of the stopped crack. A
dislocation based model derived from this mechanism
has been proposed [32]. The number of cycles neces-
sary for a crack to overcome a grain boundary can
be estimated with this model and is in good agree-
ment with experimental observations. Details of this
model will be published in a forthcoming paper.
5. Conclusion
The microstructure and the fatigue properties of
three model AS7G03 cast aluminium alloys contain-
ing artificial pores have been studied. Much attention
has been paid to the 3D characterisation of porosity
by means of synchrotron X-ray tomography and also
to the study of fatigue crack development in relation
with local crystallography by means of EBSD. The
major findings can be summarised as follow:
Two types of pores are present in the material:
microshrinkage pores and artificial gas pores. The
amount of gas introduced in the alloys during pro-
cessing has almost no influence on the volume
 J.-Y. Buffière et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A316 (2001) 115–126
fraction of microshrinkages but increases exponentially
the volume fraction of gas pores. Most pores are inter-
granular. Their convex parts correspond to interden-
dritic zones containing brittle eutectic silicon particles.
Regarding the fatigue properties, the porosity level of
the alloys was found to be a first order parameter which
greatly alters both the average number of cycles to
failure and the lifetime scatter, specially at high stress
level. The initiation of fatigue cracks occurs by decohe-
sions of Si particles located near the convex parts of
pores which are located at or below the surface of the
samples. For the stress levels investigated the initiation
stage is always a negligible part of the whole fatigue life.
Although nearly all pores give rise to a crack, most of
those cracks remain stopped near the pores. The crack
propagation at high stress level (|= 240 MPa) is quite
insensitive to microstructural barriers and can be reason-
ably well described by a Paris type law. At low stresses,
however, cracks are often observed to stop at grain
boundaries and the fatigue life is no longer predicted by
a simple propagation law.
Thus, the modelling of fatigue behaviour at low stress
requires a thorough understanding of the mechanisms
which allow cracks to cross grain boundaries. Some
interesting experimental information on those mecha-
nisms can be obtained by precise EBSD [21] but those
experiments can only be performed at the sample sur-
face. A significant step ahead could be made if one were
able to observe the progressive crack path in the bulk of
the material. This work is currently being carried out by
means of synchrotron X-ray tomography. Preliminary
results have already shown that such images could be
obtained with a 1 mm resolution. This should provide an
invaluable information for the study of crack propaga-
tion and for the modelling of fatigue properties.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank J.C. Ehrström and F.
Cossé from the Pechiney Research Centre (Voreppe
France) for the financial support during this study, for
providing the material and also for stimulating discus-
sions. Thanks are also due to the ID 19 staff at ESRF
and G. Peix from CNDRI Laboratories for their help
during the tomography experiments and the fruitful
discussions. Finally, the authors are grateful to Professor
P. Buffat, from CIME laboratory at EPFL Lausanne,
for using the Philips XL 30 FEG microscope and to M.
Jourlin for his help in analysing the 3D images.
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