Behavior, damage and fatigue life assessment of lost foam casting aluminum alloys under thermo-mechanical fatigue conditions

The purpose of this paper is to define a thermomechanical fatigue criterion in order to predict the failure of the cylinder heads issued with the lost foam casting process. The microstructure of the materials (A356-A319) is affected by the lost foam casting process which can directly affect the mechanical properties, the damage mechanisms and the fatigue failure of the materials. The major problem in defining a predictive fatigue criterion in this case is the fact that it should be on one side applicable for the structure which is submitted to complex multiaxial thermomechanical loadings and on the other side should take into account the microstructural effects of casting process. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.