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Achieving ultrahigh fatigue resistance in AlSi10Mg alloy by additive manufacturing

Nature Materials volume 22, pages 1182–1188 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Since the first discovery of the fatigue phenomenon in the late 1830s, efforts to fight against fatigue failure have continued. Here we report a fatigue resistance phenomenon in nano-TiB2-decorated AlSi10Mg enabled by additive manufacturing. This fatigue resistance mechanism benefits from the three-dimensional dual-phase cellular nanostructure, which acts as a strong volumetric nanocage to prevent localized damage accumulation, thus inhibiting fatigue crack initiation. The intrinsic fatigue strength limit of nano-TiB2-decorated AlSi10Mg was proven to be close to its tensile strength through the in situ fatigue tests of a defect-free microsample. To demonstrate the practical applicability of this mechanism, printed bulk nano-TiB2-decorated AlSi10Mg achieved fatigue resistance more than double those of other additive manufacturing Al alloys and surpassed those of high-strength wrought Al alloys. This strategy of additive-manufacturing-assisted nanostructure engineering can be extended to the development of other dual-phase fatigue-resistant metals.

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Fig. 1: Achieving high fatigue strength of the AM NTD-Al alloy.
Fig. 2: Microstructure of the AM NTD-Al alloy.
Fig. 3: In situ microfatigue-testing results.
Fig. 4: Fatigue resistance mechanism investigation on the specimen after 107 fatigue cycles at a maximum stress of 260 MPa (R = 0.1).

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Data availability

All data are available in the main text or the Supplementary Information. The data generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from Z.C.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge L. A. Jiao and X. J. Cao from Carl Zeiss (Shanghai) for their aid in the µ-CT analysis and µ-CT-guided laser polishing experiment, as well as W. Li from TESCAN China for his support on the FIB-SEM experiments. Funding: National Natural Science Foundation of China grant 51971137 (Z.C.); National Natural Science Foundation of China grant 52101043 (C.D.); National Natural Science Foundation of China grant 52101179 (J. Liu); Conseil Regional du Nord-Pas de Calais (G.J.); European Regional Development Fund (ERDF; G.J.)

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Chengyi Dan, Yuchi Cui, Yi Wu, Zhe Chen.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Chengyi Dan, Yuchi Cui, Zhe Chen, Mingliang Wang & Haowei Wang

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Chengyi Dan, Yi Wu, Zhe Chen, Yakai Xiao, Han Chen, Jun Liu, Lei Wang, Yang Li, Ying Zhou, Siming Ma, Qiwei Shi & Haowei Wang

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, People’s Republic of China

    Hui Liu & Jian Lu

  4. Univ. Lille, CNRS, INRA, ENSCL, UMR 8207–UMET–Unité Matériaux et Transformations, Lille, France

    Gang Ji & Ahmed Addad

  5. Centre for Advanced Structural Materials, City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Research Institute, Greater Bay Joint Division, Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China

    Jian Lu

  6. CityU-Shenzhen Futian Research Institute, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China

    Jian Lu

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  1. Chengyi Dan
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Z.C. and J. Lu. Methodology: Y.W., C.D., H.W., H.L., M.W., Q.S., S.M. and L.W. Investigation: C.D., Y.C., Y.W., H.C., G.J., Y.X., A.A. and J. Liu. Visualization: C.D., Y.L., H.C., Y.Z. and H.L. Funding acquisition: Z.C., C.D., G.J. and H.W. Project administration: Z.C., C.D. and Y.W. Supervision: Z.C. and J. Lu. Writing (original draft): Z.C. and C.D. Writing (review and editing): Z.C., J. Lu, C.D. and Y.C.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zhe Chen or Jian Lu.

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Nature Materials thanks Rajiv Mishra, Christopher Hutchinson and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 AlSi10Mg powders decorated with TiB2 nanoparticles.

(a, b) TiB2/AlSi10Mg powders with spherical morphology. (c) Cross-section of powder showing the homogeneously distributed Si cells and TiB2 particles. (d) Statistic analysis of the sphericity of TiB2/AlSi10Mg powders. The laser reflectivity (e) and K-M absorption factor (f) of the AlSi10Mg and 5% TiB2/AlSi10Mg powders. The laser absorption rate of 5% TiB2/AlSi10Mg powders have been significantly increased by introducing nano-TiB2 particles.

Extended Data Fig. 2 As-printed NTD-Al alloy fatigue testing specimens.

(a) Samples constructed by machine EOS M280. (b) Samples constructed by machine 3D Systems ProX MP 200. Schematics of fatigue testing specimen dimensions. (c) Pull-pull fatigue test sample geometry in mm, R = 0.1 (ASTM E466-21). (d) Rotating bending fatigue test sample geometry in mm, R = −1 (ISO 1143-2008).

Extended Data Fig. 3 3 μ-CT analysis showing the spatial and size distributions of defects.

(a) Defects with irregular morphology in AM AlSi10Mg alloy. (b) The maximum defect in the AlSi10Mg sample with the length about 266 μm. (c) Defects with near spherical morphology in AM NTD-Al alloy manufactured by EOS M280. (d) The maximum defect in the NTD-Al sample with the diameter about 77 μm. (e, f) Comparison of number and volume fractions of defects in different size ranges.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Microstructure characterisation of the NTD-Al sample manufactured by EOS M280.

(a) Grain morphology of the plane perpendicular to the printing direction. (b) Grain morphology of the plane parallel to the printing direction. (c) Network of solidification cellular structure with an average diameter of ~500 nm. (d) Selected-area electron diffraction pattern indicating that Si existed as nanosized phases with random orientations.

Extended Data Fig. 5 In situ micro-mechanical testing.

(a) Geometry of the tensile grip and micro-specimen. SEM images of (b) the customised diamond tensile grip and (c) the micro-specimen. (d) Stress-strain curve measured from the in situ micro-tensile test, inset: SEM images of the necked region at different strain levels.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Tensile Properties of as-printed NTD-Al.

Engineering stress–strain curves of as-printed NTD-Al alloys by the two additive manufacturing machines.

Extended Data Fig. 7 FEM simulation of the stress concentration caused by the internal pores in the AMAlSi10Mg alloy and AM NTD-Al alloy.

(a) An example of the FEM model with an irregular LOF defect inside the AM AlSi10Mg alloy matrix. (b) Stress distribution near the typical LOF defect surface in the AM AlSi10Mg alloy under a nominal strain of 0.05%. (c) Stress distribution of a typical spherical pore in the AM NTD-Al alloy under a nominal strain of 0.05%. (d) Stress distribution of the typical spherical pore under a nominal strain of 0.31% when the stress of the matrix is close to the fatigue strength (~260 MPa). € Stress concentration factors of nine large irregular LOF defects in the AM AlSi10Mg sample and nine typical pores in the AM NTD-Al sample.

Extended Data Fig. 8 Fractographic observations of fatigue failures in AM NTD-Al alloy.

(a–c) Fracture surface of AM NTD-Al alloy at different fatigue loading strength, R = 0.1; (d–f) three typical regions pointed out by white arrows in Extended Fig. 8A. The fatigue crack usually initiates at the largest pore next to the sample surface. Many smaller defects were also found on the fracture surface. The interspacing between neighboring defects ranges from tens to hundreds of microns. Obvious Si cellular boundaries were also found on the fracture surface.

Extended Data Fig. 9 Si cellular structure of the AM NTD-Al alloys after 107 fatigue testing cycles at a maximum stress of 260 MPa (R = 0.1).

(a, b) HAADF STEM images showing the intact Si cellular structure. TEM samples were prepared from randomly selected area from the gauge section of the sample after fatigue testing. (c–f) EDS maps illustrating the distribution Al, Si, Mg and Ti elements.

Extended Data Table 1 Chemical composition (wt.%) and additive manufacturing processing parameters of NTD-Al and AlSi10Mg powders
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–3 and discussion.

Supplementary Video 1

In situ tensile test of the AM NTD-Al sample. A video clip recorded during a tensile test conducted at the strain rate of 10−3 s–1, played at 10× speed. Severe necking was observed, which led to the failure of the sample.

Supplementary Video 2

In situ fatigue test of the AM NTD-Al sample with σmax = 470 MPa, R = 0.1. A 10 s segment of the video recorded during cyclic loading of the sample from ~50 to ~470 MPa, played at the original speed. A sinusoidal displacement signal was applied to the tensile grip at 100 Hz, much higher than the frame rate of the video, producing the wave-like artefact.

Supplementary Video 3

In situ fatigue test of the AM NTD-Al sample with σmax = 520 MPa, R = 0.1. Video clip recorded for 105 cycles of loading from ~50 to ~520 MPa, played at 50× speed. Necking of the sample was observed to gradually develop during the course of the test.

Supplementary Video 4

Supplementary Video 4. In situ fatigue test of the AM AlSi10Mg sample with σmax = 430 MPa, R = 0.1. A 10 s segment of the video recorded during cyclic loading of the sample from ~40 to ~430 MPa, played at the original speed.

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Dan, C., Cui, Y., Wu, Y. et al. Achieving ultrahigh fatigue resistance in AlSi10Mg alloy by additive manufacturing. Nat. Mater. 22, 1182–1188 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01651-9

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