Fatigue Crack Propagation in 5754 Aluminum Alloy under Four-Point Bending

The aluminum 5754 alloy is one of the widely used engineering materials in shipping, rivet making, tread plates and automotive industries. These engineering structures envisage variable loading conditions during their service. In addition to it, it is also experiencing seismic vibrations. Hence, the engineering components made from such aluminum alloy are susceptible to fatigue fracture. In the current study, the prediction of fatigue crack growth (FCG) in 5754 aluminum alloy was made using the exponential function. The beam specimen comes up with a cross-section of 25X25 mm², a span length of 300 mm with a mechanical notch length of 2.70 mm at the centre was subjected to four-point bending (FPB) employing hydraulic INSTRON 8800 tensile testing apparatus. The periodic loading condition deformed the material up to large plastic deformation. The applied load was further down the elasticity of the material. The experimental data provided the relation between crack length (a) to the number of cycles (N) to failure. The response surface methodology (RSM) and modified exponential equation were used to predict the FCG. In RSM, when “stress intensity factor (K)” and “number of the cycle (N)" were considered independent variables, the response (a) was optimum (maximum) as compared to when “stress intensity factor range (del K)” and “fatigue crack growth rate (da/dN)” were considered independent variables. Hence, for designing the aluminum 5754 alloys as engineering structures, it was the number of cycles which provides a safe design as compared to da/dN. The modified exponential equation using an exponential function predicted the FCG for aluminum 5754 alloy in the form of a beam specimen. The anticipated results agreed with experimental data as the prediction ratio was 1.20 and the % deviation was 3.7.