Study and modelling of anodized 2618 aluminum behavior subjected to multiaxial fatigue

Abstract

Anodized Aluminum alloys are widely used in aeronautic construction due to their specific mechanical properties. However, anodization process often leads to a decrease of the fatigue resistance of the alloys. In order to identify and characterize the different mechanisms involved in the detrimental effect of anodization of 2618-T851 alloy on its fatigue life and to determine the impact of loading nature, several tests have been performed on specimens with different surface states at various stress ratios. It was found that roughness of machining has no effect unlike the stress ratio or mean stress in tensile tests. The tests on the pickled, anodized, impregnated and sealed specimens showed it was the anodic oxidation step which was the more detrimental for fatigue resistance under tensile loading comparing to the other steps. It has been also observed that no such detrimental effect occurred under torsion loading. Concerning the prediction of fatigue life, two critical plane-based analysis approaches have been used (Morel and Fatemi-Socie criteria) to make fatigue life prediction for uniaxial and multiaxial fatigue test. Comparisons showed that both criteria gives overestimated fatigue life for uniaxial tensile loading under compression mean stress and underestimated fatigue life for tensile-torsion in phase loading.