Multiaxial Fatigue and Cracking Orientation of Forged AZ80 Magnesium Alloy

Abstract

The effect of the multiaxiality and proportionality of loading on the cyclic behaviour and early cracking behaviour was studied for closed die forged AZ80 Mg alloy. Several different loading paths were presented, uniaxial and biaxial with varying levels of non-proportionality. In multiaxial loading the effect of proportionality is only present on the shear response of the material and increasing levels of non-proportionality is detrimental to the fatigue life. When compared with proportional loading, a 50% reduction in life was observed under 90° out of phase non-proportional loading. The pure axial cracking behaviour is dominated by transverse cracks along the plane of maximum normal stress, whereas in pure shear the material exhibited longitudinal cracking (shear dominated) behaviour in LCF regime and helical cracking (normal stress dominated) in the HCF regime. The synergistic effects of each individual uniaxial cracking modes contribution towards the combined macroscopic cracking behaviour in multiaxial loading was investigated, and was dominated by transverse cracking when the shear strain energy density (SED) contribution to the total SED was low, and mixed cracking when the shear SED contribution was high.