The Low Cycle Fatigue Behavior of Equal-Channel Angular Pressed Al 5052 Alloy

The low cycle fatigue(LCF) test was performed to characterize the influences of the equal channel angular pressing(ECAP) and subsequent annealing of Al 5052 alloy. In the present research, one group of Al 5052 alloy specimens was directly subjected to ECAP, while another was subjected to ECAP and subsequent annealing. It was found that the tensile strength of the Al 5052 alloy increased, while its elongation decreased, with increasing number of ECAP passes. The LCF test was conducted at constant total strain amplitudes of 0.5%, 0.7%, 0.9% and 1.1%. Only cyclic hardening was observed as the number of fatigue cycles increased at all strain amplitudes in the specimen without ECAP. However, the ECAPed specimens showed a slight amount of cyclic hardening in the beginning and then saturation until fracture.