Comparing of High-Cycle Fatigue Lifetimes in Un-corroded and Corroded Piston Aluminum Alloys in Diesel Engine Applications

Diesel engine components in the combustion chamber have been exposed to cyclic loadings under environmental effects, including high temperatures and corrosive fluids. Therefore, knowing the corrosion-fatigue behavior of materials is essential for designer engineers. In this article, pure fatigue and corrosion-fatigue behaviors of the piston aluminum alloy have been experimentally investigated. For such an objective, as-cast and pre-corrosive standard samples were tested by the rotary bending fatigue machine, under 4 stress levels. Some specimens were exposed to the corrosive fluid with 0.00235 % of the sulfuric acid for 100 and 200 hours. The results showed higher weight losses for 200 hours immersion times. As another result, it could be concluded that the lifetime decreased in pre-corrosive samples for both 100 and 200 hours of the immersion time, compared to that of as-cast specimens. However, such a lifetime reduction was more significant for 200 hours of the immersion time, especially within the high-cycle fatigue regime (or lower stress levels). Under high stress levels, both pre-corrosive sample types had almost similar behaviors. The field-emission scanning electron microscopy images of specimen fracture surfaces indicated that the brittle region of the fractured surface was larger for specimens after the 200 hours of corrosion-fatigue testing than the other specimen.