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The aim in this dissertation was to improve our understanding of the effectiveness of shot peening in prolonging fatigue life, of 7075-T6 Aluminium Alloy round bar, taking into consideration surface residual stress, microstructural and micro-hardness parameters. Three point bending, high stress, moderately low cycle, fatigue tests were conducted to study the effects of shot peening and associated surface residual compressive stresses on fatigue life. The influence of shot peening on the microstructure was explored, including the application of mechanical small plastic straining and surface skimming, to vary the surface residual compressive stresses and induce strain hardening. Tests were performed to measure residual stress-depth distribution, plastic straining, micro-hardness, and the microstructure analysed on scanning electron microscopy (SEM) fractographs. The Juvinall and Marshek life prediction model was used in conjunction with the Gerber equation for non-zero mean stress applications to generate a proposed life prediction model for this material which is user-friendly. The proposed life prediction model has a linear equation format with the flexibility to conservatively accommodate most of the various types, and combinations, of treatments applied in this research by the use of customised constants. The results show that there was good correlation between actual and predicted fatigue life as well as useful insights into the role of the microstructure in explaining fatigue life behaviour.

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M.Ing. / This dissertation investigates the fatigue and monotonic tensile properties of cast aluminium alloy wheels in various post cast conditions. It was found that monotonic tensile properties could be used in the original universal slopes method of Manson to predict the fatigue properties as a conservative first approximation for A356 cast aluminium alloy wheels. Using finite element analysis and the predicted fatigue properties the fatigue life of A356 aluminium alloy wheels could be determined. Further work is required on the surface effect of paint on the wheel and residual stress on the surface of the wheel.

A study has been carried out to investigate the growth and closure behavior of short cracks in 2024-T351 aluminum alloy and four different conditions of 4340 steel using through thickness cracks of straight fronts. The experiments were carried out to study the influence of stress level, stress ratio, yield strength and prior austenitic grain A sizes in notched and unnotched specimens. The stereoimaging technique was developed and adapted to obtain crack closing and opening points, and also near tip displacement fields. Experimental results are presented with a general discussion. It was found that long cracks showed good correlation when analyzed in terms of effective stress intensity range. However,correlations were poor for short cracks. lt was found that short cracks show less closure behavior than long cracks. The estimates of initial crack lengths based on linear elastic data were made. These estimates differed significantly from the actual initial crack lengths for completely reversed cycling tests. Suggestions have been made to the equivalent initial flaw size approach and conclusions have been drawn. / Ph. D.

Changes in pretreated 5182, 6061 and 7075 aluminum surfaces on exposure to moisture for short times was studied. The pretreatment used was the standard ASTM method for FPL etching of aluminum. The moisture treatment used was either immersion in water at 81° C or exposure to water vapor at 81° C. The experimental techniques used to analyze the pretreated aluminum surfaces before and after exposure to moisture were ESCA or XPS, AES, high resolution SEM, and specular reflectance FTIR. There was a change in the surface topography on exposure of the aluminum surfaces to water as determined using high resolution SEM. Stoichiometric calculations based on XPS analysis were made to estimate the amount of excess water present on the surface. Water was present on the surface before exposure to moisture, for all three alloys. The amount of water present on the surface was found to decrease with increasing times of exposure to water for all three alloys. This result was consistent with the model that pseudoboehmite formed on the surface was being converted into boehmite at longer times of exposure to water. The thickness of the oxide layer was found to increase with time of exposure to water based on ESCA results. The same conclusion was reached by depth profiling the oxide layer using AES. The rate of increase in the concentration of pseudoboehmite on the surfaces as calculated from FTIR data went in the order 7075 < 5182 < 6061. The activation energy for the third step (transport of soluble species to the surface) in the conversion of surface Al₂O₃ to AlOOH was calculated from FTIR results to be 3.5 kcal mol⁻¹. / Master of Science

The increasing use of alpha/beta Ti-Al alloys in critical aircraft gas turbine engine and airframe applications necessitates the further development of physically-based constitutive models that account for their complex microdeformation mechanisms. Alpha/beta Ti-Al alloys are dual-phase in nature consisting of a mixture of hcp (alpha) and bcc (beta) crystal structures, which through variation in alloying elements and/or processing techniques can be produced in a wide range of microstructural compositions and morphologies. A constitutive model for these materials should address the various sources of material anisotropy and heterogeneity at both the micro and macroscales. The main sources of anisotropy in these materials are the low symmetry of the hcp phase, the texture, the relative strengths of different slip systems, non-planar dislocation core structures, phase distributions, and dislocation substructure evolution. The focus of this work is the development of a 3-D crystal plasticity model for duplex Ti-6Al-4V (Ti-64), an (alpha+beta) alloy. The model is used to study the process of attachment fatigue. Attachment fatigue is a boundary layer phenomenon in which most of the plastic deformation and damage accumulation occurs at depths on the order of tens of microns and encompasses regions of only a few grains into the depth of the material. The use of computational micromechanics-based crystal plasticity models to study attachment fatigue is a relatively new approach. This approach has the potential to offer additional insight to classical homogeneous plasticity models, since the length scales over which relative slip and crack initiation occur during this process is on the order of microstructural dimensions. Emphasis is placed on understanding the effects that texture, slip strength anisotropy, and phase distribution have on the surface and subsurface deformation fields during attachment fatigue. The deformation fields are quantified in terms of cumulative effective plastic strain distributions, plastic strain maps, and plastic strain-based critical plane multiaxial fatigue parameters.

D. Tech. Mechanical Engineering. / Discusses the main objective of this study was to extend the hybrid method developed by Paskaramoorthy, et al (1988). This objective was to study the effect of elastic wave on any particulate reinforced metal matrix composite (PRMMC). The specific objectives were: to compare the effect of plane wave and shear vertical wave on a particular particulate reinforced metal matrix composite (PRMMC)-Mg/TiC, using analytical method ; to use the extended hybrid method to determine the effect of particle size and single interface layer on Mg/TiC.