Low-cycle fatigue properties of an ultrafine-grained magnesium alloy processed by equal-channel angular pressing

Abstract

Magnesium alloy Mg-3%Al-1%Zn (AZ31) billets prepared from equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) were utilized in low-cycle fatigue tests in order to investigate their fatigue life. Fully reversed strain-controlled tension-compression fatigue tests were conducted at the frequency of 1 Hz in ambient air. The microstructures were examined by optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The hysteresis loops of the ECAP processed and conventionally extruded samples display obviously different shapes in the total strain amplitude range from 0.2% to 0.6%. Accordingly, the low cycle fatigue lives of ECAP processed samples are found to be longer than those of extruded samples, which can be attributed to the different in the hysteresis energy incorporating tensile strain energy.

Keywords

magnesium alloy / low cycle fatigue / hysteresis energy / fatigue life / ECAP

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