Effects of Silicon and Chromium on the Fatigue Properties of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu Cast Alloy

Effects of Si and Cr additions on the fatigue properties of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu cast alloy were investigated by low and high cycle fatigue tests. It was found that in the low cycle fatigue test, fatigue life of base alloy showed the maximum value of 3,075 cycles, whereas in Si and Cr containing alloys, it was 2,993 and 1,413 cycles, respectively. The same trend was obtained in high cycle fatigue test, i.e., the fatigue strength in base alloy showed the highest value of 104MPa and decreased to 100MPa for Cr containing alloy and 81MPa for Si containing alloy. The fatigue ratio was about 0.20 for all three alloys. The tensile strength of base alloy also showed the maximum value of 513MPa, and decreased with the addition of Si and Cr to 400 and 500MPa, respectively. Metallographic observation revealed that the fatigue crack initiated at the surface and propagated along the grain boundary.