Aghaie E, Stroh J, Sediako D, Smith M (2018). In-Situ Fitness-for-Service Assessment of Aluminum Alloys Developed for Automotive Powertrain Lightweighting. Light Metals 2018, The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-72284-9_53.
Evaluating the high-temperature creep behaviour of the Al alloys used in the automotive industries has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers over the last decade. However, very little investigation into the high-temperature tertiary creep of Al alloys has been published to date.
In this study, in-situ neutron diffraction analysis was employed in order to evaluate the tertiary creep behaviour of A206 aluminum alloy under tensile load at 225 °C. The selected pressure and temperature was chosen to simulate actual in-service condition experienced by the automotive powertrain components; e.g. cylinder block and engine head.
The results of the in-situ neutron diffraction revealed the tertiary creep behaviour of the selected {111} planes in A206 via monitoring the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the diffraction peak and creep strain (%). This technique is first of a kind, which provides a method to observe damage accumulation during tertiary creep prior to actual observed material failure (fracture) in the A206 alloy at high temperature.