Materials Express

2158-5849/2020/10/942/006
Copyright © 2020 by American Scientific Publishers
All rights reserved. doi:10.1166/mex.2020.1696
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Low-cycle fatigue behavior of 7075-T6 aluminum

alloy at different strain amplitudes
Lei Fu1, 2 , Heng Duan3 , Hui Li2 , Li Lin4 , Qingyuan Wang1, ∗ , Ji Yao3 , and Yunrong Luo2
1
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
2
College of Mechanical Engineering, Sichuan University of Science & Engineering, Zigong 643000, China
3
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650000, China
4
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University of Science & Engineering, Zigong 643000, China

ABSTRACT
Low-cycle fatigue (LCF) life and failure mechanism of 7075-T6 high strength aluminum alloys were investigated
Article

under MTS 809. The cycling stress response and the cyclic stress–strain relationships under different strain
amplitudes were investigated. Using Manson-Coffin
IP: 5.10.31.211 law, the
On: Mon, 21 three parameter
Jun 2021 exponential function equation and
09:56:19
the damage function model of tensile hysteresis
Copyright: energyScientific
American (Ostergren equation), the regression analysis of LCF
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Delivered
test data was carried out, it was found that the by Ingenta
fatigue life prediction results of the three parameter exponential
function equation were better than the other two life prediction methods in terms of statistical analysis methods
of standard deviation and dispersion band. Analysis of microstructure and fatigue failure fracture revealed that
fatigue crack initiated at the interface of precipitations and -phase aluminium substrate in surface or near
surface of the sample.
Keywords: Low-Cycle Fatigue (LCF) Life, Failure Mechanism, Life Prediction.

1. INSTRUCTION LCF properties of 7075-T6 alloy and its failure mecha-

The 7075 aluminum alloy is widely used in fields of
aerospace, weapons and transportation industries, etc.,
owing to its excellent corrosion resistance, high specific
strength and good machinability characteristics. This alloy
have been widely applied in critical components subjected
to mechanical fatigue loading conditions in industrial
applications [1]. During service, the applications experi-
ence cyclic loading leading to premature failure of mate-
rials. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the
fatigue behavior of 7075-T6. Most of the existing investi-
gations are related to effect of surface strengthening treat-
ment on LCF performance of aluminum alloy [2], very
high cycle fatigue [3], and ratcheting strain on LCF life
of the metallic material [1, 4]. Further, many researchers
proposed or modified some constructive modes to pre-
dict LCF life [5, 6]. Only few investigations revealed
∗
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
nism [7, 8]. According to statistics, most of the damages of
aircraft and automobile components are caused by fatigue
fracture. Therefore, in-depth study on the fatigue perfor-
mance of 7075 aluminum alloy is beneficial to the safety
design of aircraft, automobile and other components. So
far there were still a lack of theoretical or experimental
research on its LCF micro-fracture mechanism.
Therefore, this paper would carry out detailed investiga-
tions on the 7075 aluminum alloy LCF fatigue behaviors
including cyclic stress response, cyclic stress–strain rela-
tionships and fatigue lifetime prediction model, etc., are
expected for a better understanding of its fatigue failure
mechanisms.
2. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS
2.1. Experimental Materials
The experimental material was 7075 aluminum alloy
produced by southwest aluminum corporation (China).

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Low-cycle fatigue behavior of 7075-T6 aluminum alloy at different strain amplitudes
Fu et al.
Materials Express
Table I. Nominal chemical constant of the test material (wt.% ).

Al Zn Mg Cu Mn Ti Cr Ni Fe Si

Balance 5.29 2.5 1.52 0.05 0.02 0.19 0.044 0.29 0.09

Table II. The mechanical properties.

Elasticmodulus/ Tensile strength/ Yield strength/

Gpa Mpa Mpa Elongation/%

71.3 550 476 12

Fig. 2. Micro-structure of the test material.

play a significant role in enhancing dislocation and matrix

strengthening, which is one of the main reasons for the
high strength of the alloy [9].

3.2. Characteristics of Cyclic Stress–Strain

Fig. 1. Sample of 7075-T6 aluminum alloy (unit: mm).
The heat treatment state of the material was T6, which
represented the supply state of artificial aging after cooling
by high temperature forming process. The nominal chem-
Figure 4 shows the cyclic stress–strain curves of the test-
ing material in different strain amplitudes. Obviously, the
cyclic response curves can be divided into 3 stages. At the
initial stage, the cyclic stress amplitude increases with
the increase in cyclic numbers, and the testing sample
shows obvious cyclic hardening characteristics. In the mid-
dle stage, the test material exhibits relatively good cyclic

Article
ical constant and mechanical properties of the employed stability. At the last stage, occurrence of macro-cracks
7075-T6 alloy are listed in Tables IP: 5.10.31.211
I and On: Mon, leads
II, respectively. 21 Jun to 2021 09:56:19
the decrease in the stress amplitude and final frac-
Copyright: American Scientific Publishers
ture. The testing material shows basically the cyclic stabil-
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2.2. Experimental Processes ity during the total cyclic process, which is beneficial to
Low cycle fatigue tests of the employed aluminum alloy improve the dynamic bearing capacity and thus sustains a
were carried out according to the National Standard long life without premature damage or failure [10].
for fatigue testing (GB/T15248-2008), and the hourglass
shaped samples are fabricated from the sheet material, the 3.3. Hysteresis Curves of Typical Stress and Strain
detailed dimensions are shown in Figure 1. The stress ratio Figure 5 shows the hysteretic loops at the first and last
was R = −1, the cyclic waveform was a triangular wave, cycles under two different strain amplitudes of the testing
the loading frequency was 1 Hz, the strain amplitude was
0.7%∼0.9%, and the material failure criterion was 5%
peak load drop. ♣ ♣ Al
♦ MgZn2

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Metallographic Structure and XRD Analysis
Figure 2 shows the microstructure of 7075-T6 observed
intensity

under the metallographic microscope. The microstructure

of the alloy is uniformly distributed, in which intensive
fine precipitates dispersed. The Energy Dispersive Spec-
trometer (EDS) analysis determines that these precipitates ♣
are Al7 Cu2 Fe intermetallic and Mg-rich precipitates. The
X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of the tested alloy shown
♣ ♣ ♣
in Figure 3 confirms that the alloy is mainly consisted  
of overwhelming -Al phase and few second phase 
(MgZn2 ) at the equilibrium state, without diffraction peak
from Al7 Cu2 Fe phase. This might be a result that the 30 40 50 60 70 80
Al7 Cu2 Fe precipitated particles are too small to show sig- 2θ/(deg.)
nificant characteristic peaks on XRD. It is meaningful to
illustrate that the formation of these fine precipitates can Fig. 3. X-ray diffraction pattern of the test alloy.

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 Materials Express Low-cycle fatigue behavior of 7075-T6 aluminum alloy at different strain amplitudes
Fu et al.

Table III. The fatigue test results.

500 Amplitude of Amplitude of Amplitude of Fatigue life

total strain (t ) elastic strain (e ) plastic strain (p ) (2Nf )/cycle
Stress amplitude/MPa

0.007 0.005843 0.001157 2822

0.0075 0.006162 0.001338 1730
450 0.008 0.006446 0.001554 1482
0.0085 0.006666 0.001834 1138
0.009 0.006783 0.002217 640
0.7%
400 Strain amplitude 0.8%
0.9% the elastic strain range (e ) plus the plastic strain range
(p ) [12, 13].
350 f
200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 t /2 = e /2 + p /2 = 2Nf b + f 2Nf c (1)
Cylces/N E
Where f , E, b, f , c, Nf are the fatigue strength coef-
Fig. 4. Cycle stress response characteristic curves of test material.
ficient, the Young’s modulus (MPa), the fatigue strength
exponent, the fatigue ductility coefficient, the fatigue duc-
material, respectively. It can be seen that the hystere- tility exponent and the fatigue life (cycle), respectively.
sis curve in the first cycle is almost “a solid line” and The results of LCF experiment are shown in Table III,
there is little plastic strain. With continuous cyclic load- the test data were fitted with Eq. (1), the strain fatigue
ing, the hysteresis loop is gradually plump, indicating that parameters are listed in Table IV. Then, the relation-
the plastic strain amplitude becomes larger and larger. ship between cyclic strain and life can be obtained by
Eq. (2), the life prediction results obtained by Manson-
Article

Under the action of two strain amplitudes, the narrow

hysteresis loops show the characteristic of cyclic strain Coffin model is given in Figure 6.
IP: 5.10.31.211 On: Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:56:19
hardening [11]. In Figure 5(a), theCopyright:
narrow hysteresis
= 0.01362Nf −0.105 + 0.0442Nf −0.461
American Scientific Publishers (2)
loop is smaller than that in Figure 5(b), suggesting that by Ingenta t
Delivered
the plastic deformation at the strain amplitude of 0.9%
3.4.2. Three Parameter Exponential Function Model
is significantly larger than that at the strain amplitude
of 0.7%. Fu [14] studied the LCF fatigue results of materials, and
obtained a three parameter exponential function equation
3.4. Life Prediction Model Investigations to represent the –N curves for most materials, as shown
by Eq. (3):
3.4.1. Manson-Coffin Model
Nf t − 0 m = c (3)
For the strain-controlled LCF experiment, fatigue life
estimations are commonly performed using the Manson- Where Nf is the cycles to failure (cycle), t is the total
Coffin formula. According to the Basquin formula and strain range (%), 0 , m and c are undetermined constants.
the Manson-Coffin formula, the strain-life has the follow- In accordance with LCF life test data, the fatigue
ing relationship. The total strain range (t ) is equal to strain-life (–N ) curve can be characterized by the three

600 600
(a) (b)
Stress amplitude/(MPa)
Stress amplitude(MPa)

400 400
Cycle 1
200 200
Cycle 1
0 0

-200 Cycle 1255 -200 Cycle 398

-400 -400

-600 -600
-0.6 -0.3 0.0 0.3 0.6 -0.9 -0.6 -0.3 0.0 0.3 0.6 0.9
Strain amplitude(mm/mm) Strain amplitude(mm/mm)

Fig. 5. Hysteresis loops of the tested material. (a) Strain amplitude of 0.7%, (b) strain amplitude of 0.9%.

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Low-cycle fatigue behavior of 7075-T6 aluminum alloy at different strain amplitudes
Fu et al.
Materials Express
Table IV. Strain fatigue parameters of the test material. 2200
 1800
f /GPa b  /%
f c
1400
3.14 −0.105 0.0136 −0.461

Predicted Nf/cycle
1000

parameter exponential function equation, as shown by

600
Eq. (4), the life prediction results obtained by three-
parameter power function equation are shown in Figure 7.

Nf = 3.4 × 10−9 × t −5.4 (4)

240
3.4.3. Ostergren Model 200
240 650 1200 1750
The damage function life model of the tensile hystere-
sis energy was proposed by Ostergren [15]. This method Experimental Nf/cycle
considers that the damage of LCF with strain control is Fig. 7. Life prediction results obtained by three-parameter power
decided by the testing samples stored strain energy under function equation.
action of alternating stress. The energy Wt is character-
ized by the damage function approximation as the prod-
3.5. Assessment of Life Prediction Ability
uct of the inelastic strain range in and the peak tensile
stress t . The ability of a life prediction model to correlate test data
is commonly used in engineering to assess the predictive
Wt Nfa = c (5) power of the predictive model. The correlation of the test
data can be expressed in terms of the dispersion band
Wt = in t (6)

Article
and the standard deviation, The dispersion band represents
the degree of deviation between the predictable lifetime
Where c and a are constants, W IP: stands
5.10.31.211
for On: Mon, and
maximum 21 Jun 2021 09:56:19
the experimental lifetime, while the standard deviation
t
Copyright:
cyclic tensile stress, and in is plastic strain. American Scientific Publishers
indicates
Delivered by Ingenta the extent to which the data set is near the mean.
The tensile hysteresis energy damage function equation The smaller the standard deviation is, the higher the accu-
is obtained as Eq. (7): racy of the fatigue life prediction model is. The standard
deviation expression is usually defined as:
Wt = 36866Nf −1.632 (7)  1/2
1  n
S= lg Npre − lg Nob 2 (8)
The life prediction results obtained by the tensile hys- n − 1 i=1
teresis energy damage function equation are shown in
Figure 8. Where Npre is predictable lifetime and Nob is experimen-
tal lifetime.

2100
2200
1700 1800
1300 1400
Predicted Nf/cycle

Predicted Nf/cycle

1000
900

600
500

280
250
200
200 280 750 1300 1850
250 700 1300 1900
Experimental Nf/cycle
Experimental Nf/cycle
Fig. 8. Life prediction results predicted by tensile hysteresis energy
Fig. 6. Life prediction results obtained by Manson-Coffin equation. damage function equation.

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 Materials Express Low-cycle fatigue behavior of 7075-T6 aluminum alloy at different strain amplitudes
Fu et al.

Table V. substrate (Fig. 9(a)). It is also known that the -phase

Evaluation of life prediction using different prediction models.
aluminum substrate of 7075 high strength aluminum alloy
Prediction Dispersion Standard
model band deviation has face-centered cubic crystal structure (FCC) and a high
stacking fault energy, an amount of enabled slip systems
Manson-coffin formula 1.25 0.0565 are more and the critical shear stress is relatively small.
Three-parameter exponential function 1.17 0.0557
Ostergren equation 1.36 0.1255
During the alternating loads, even under low plastic defor-
mation, the dislocation is prone to move and occurs to
crossslip. On the one hand, the dislocations in the alloy
slid under the action of different internal stress, and dislo-
Regardless of the dispersion band or standard devia- cations moved to between the interface of the precipitates
tion comparison, as shown in Table V, the LCF life of the and the substrate to produce stress concentration. And on
experimental material anticipated by the three-parameter the other hand, the interface between the second phase
power function model has higher precision than those particles and the substrate is easy to cause debonding,
acquired by virtue of the Ostergren equation and the voids and the localized stress concentration under alternat-
Manson-Coffin equation. ing stress. In both cases, crack initiation is easily induced.
The crack growth zone is shown in Figures 9(b) and (c),
3.6. SEM Fracture Analysis of Aluminum Alloy the fracture morphology shows furrow pattern under high
The fatigue fracture of testing sample with the strain strain amplitude, and the fatigue striations were not
amplitude of 0.9% is selected for the scanning electron observed (Fig. 9(c)). At the same time, the crack prop-
microscopy (SEM) observation (Fig. 9). Form Figure 9(a), agation region presents characteristics of tearing ridges
the fatigue fracture included three parts: a fatigue crack accompanied by secondary cracks (Fig. 9(b)). As shown in
nucleation site (region A), a fatigue crack propagation Figure 9(d), the instantaneous fracture area presents fea-
extent (region B) and a ultimate fracture zone (region C). tures of tearing edges and dimples, so the fracture mor-
Figures 9(b)–(d) show the higher-magnification images phology belongs to quasi-cleavage fracture. In addition, a
Article

of the three regions, respectively. At high strain ampli- large number of white precipitations strengthening phases
tude stress amplitude, the fatigue fracture was character- exfoliated from the matrix are left, dimples are caused by
IP: 5.10.31.211 On: Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:56:19
ized by multiple crack sources, the fatigue crack initiated the debonding
Copyright: American Scientific of the second phase precipitated particles
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at the interface of precipitations and -phase aluminium
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(a) (b)

A region C region
B region

secondary cracks
A region tearing ridges
3mm 20μm

(c) (d)
secondary phase particles

furrow pattern
direction of crack growth
dimples

10μm 5μm

Fig. 9. The microscopic fracture topography of 7075-T6 aluminum alloy samples (t = 0.9%, Nf = 452). (a) Overall fracture, (b) crack propagation
zone, (c) local enlargement of the crack propagation region, (d) crack instability propagation in transient fault zone.

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Low-cycle fatigue behavior of 7075-T6 aluminum alloy at different strain amplitudes
Fu et al.
4. CONCLUSIONS
(1) The hysteretic properties of materials show the typical
cyclic hardening in the initial stage of fatigue loading, then
the test material exhibits relatively good cyclic stability,
the elastic deformation acts as a dominant factor during
cycling loading.
(2) The three-parameter power function equation predic-
tion on LCF life of 7075-T6 alloy is more precisely than
the other life prediction methods.
(3) Under cyclic loading, on the one hand, the disloca-
tions move to the interface between the precipitates and
the substrate to produce stress concentration. On the other
hand, the interface between the second phase particles and
the substrate was easy to cause debonding, voids and stress
concentration under cycle stress. In both cases, crack ini-
tiation was easily induced.
Acknowledgments: This work was financially sup-
ported by National Nature Science Foundation of China
(No. 51701133), the Opening Foundation of Sichuan
Province Engineering Center for Powder Metallurgy (SC-
FMYJ2019-07), the Project of Key Lab in Sichuan
Colleges on Industry Process Equipment and Control Engi-
neering (GK201808, GK201816) and the Opening Project
of Sichuan Province University Key Laboratory of Bridge
Non-destruction Detecting and Engineering IP: 5.10.31.211 On: Mon, 21 Jun
Computing
(2018QYJ03, 2018QZY01). Copyright: American Scientific
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Received: 12 November 2019. Accepted: 4 January 2020.
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