Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un vaste programme visant à établir un premier retour d’expérience sur des structures aéronautiques en fin de vie. L’objectif des travaux présentés ici est donc de caractériser le vieillissement et les propriétés résiduelles de pièces provenant d’avions après démantèlement, et donc après service. Plus précisément, deux matériaux de nature différente sont considérés : un alliage d’aluminium 2024-T351, constitutif d’une voilure d’A320 ; et un composite carbone/époxy T300/914, prélevé sur les voilures d’un Falcon X et d’un ATR.Pour les voilures composites, les travaux ont porté sur les effets de l’eau des stratifiés. L’évolution de la température de transition vitreuse en DMA a été étudiée en fonction du taux d’humidité présente dans le stratifié. Les résultats d’essais de sorption set de désorption ont été confrontés à différents modèles de diffusion. Les propriétés résiduelles ont été évaluée au travers de divers essais mécaniques. Il ressort de cette étude un très bon comportement du composite après service.Les travaux concernant la voilure métallique se focalisent sur les propriétés résiduelles en fatigue de l’alliage de voilure. Les résultats montrent qu’un durcissement structural apparaît en service, et qu’un léger abattement de la durée de vie en fatigue est observable. Cependant, le comportement à la fissuration est inchangé en comparaison avec un matériau « neuf ».Au final, ce premier retour d’expérience est positif. Il peut maintenant permettre aux avionneurs de vérifier les règles utilisées lors de la conception ou d’optimiser certains dimensionnements, mais aussi de justifier des extensions de durée de vie des avions. / The thesis is part of a larger program aimed at establishing a first feedback on structural health of aeronautical structures at the end of life. The aim of the work presented here is to characterize the residual properties after aging of parts from aircraft after teardown, and therefore after service. Specifically, two different types of materials are considered: an aluminum alloy 2024 T351, constituting the underside of an A320 wing, and a composite carbon/epoxy T300/914, taken from the wing of a Falcon X and the wing of an ATR.Concerning the composite wings, the study focused on the effects of water on laminated composites. The evolution of the glass transition temperature by DMA has been studied as function of moisture present in the composite. The results of sorption and desorption tests were confronted to different diffusion models. Residual properties were evaluated through various mechanical tests. It is clear from this study a very good behavior of the composite after service.The work on the metal wing is focused on the residual fatigue properties of these alloys. The results show that hardening occurs in service, and a slight reduction of the fatigue life is observed, the number of cycles to failure ranging between 104 and 106. However, the fatigue crack growth resistance is unchanged in comparison with a “virgin” material.Finally, this initial feedback is positive: It can now enable manufacturers to check the design rules or to optimize the design, but also to justify aircraft life extensions.

Laser surface melting (LSM) of aluminium alloys with high power continuous wave (CW) CO2 and Nd:YAG lasers has been shown to produce dendritic/cellular microstructures with refined second-phase particles distributed along the dendritic boundaries. Although refinement of the microstructure and extension of the solute solubility in the matrix can be achieved, the refined second-phase particles still act as preferential sites to initiate localized corrosion. In contrast to a CW laser, an excimer laser with a UV wavelength and pulses width in the range of nanoseconds, resulting in extremely high cooling rate up to 1011 K/s, is expected to generate a further refining of the near-surface microstructure and hence, improved corrosion performance. In this project, a Lumonics IPEX 848 KrF excimer laser, with a wavelength of 248 nm and pulse width of 13 ns, has been used for surface melting of an AA2024-T351 alloy. The aim is to investigate the microstructure and the resultant corrosion behaviour of the laser treated surface, and its contribution to alloy performance. The laser fluence was fixed at 7 J/cm2 and the number of pulses per unit area was varied as 10, 25 and 50 pulses respectively. Microstructural characterisation and compositional analysis have been performed by SEM/EDX, TEM/EDX and XRD to disclose solidification phenomena and phase transformations. The results show that the melted layers, with a melt depth from 3 to 7 µm, have been achieved, that is far more chemically uniform than the bulk alloy. In particular, the relatively fine precipitates and dispersoids in the matrix have been dissolved, while large constituent intermetallic particles at the melted layer/matrix interface have been partially melted. In addition, solute-rich bands, containing particularly copper, were formed within the melted layers, especially at the melted layer/matrix interface. SKPFM also reveals that the laser-melted layers exhibit a uniform surface potential distribution. The corrosion performance of AA2024-T351 alloy before and after LSM has been evaluated by anodic polarisation in deaerated and aerated 0.1 M NaCl solution, and immersion tests in 0.1 NaCl solutions. Exfoliation corrosion immersion test ASTM G34- 01 (EXCO test) was also carried out to evaluate the intergranular corrosion (IGC)/exfoliation resistance of the alloy. The results show that the untreated alloy exhibits severe pitting corrosion and IGC. After LSM, significant improvement of corrosion resistance has been achieved. However, delamination of the laser melted layer from the matrix was evident after an EXCO test for 6 hours. The absence of significant corrosion product may suggest a stress-related mechanism. In order to investigate the effect of LSM on anodising of AA2024-T351 alloy and its influence on the corrosion resistance, excimer LSM has been applied as a pre-treatment method prior to anodising in 0.46 M H2SO4 solution. The results show that LSM significantly improved the corrosion performance following anodising compared with the alloy anodised without LSM and LSM alone.

Cette thèse s'inscrit dans le cadre d'un vaste programme visant à établir un premier retour d'expérience sur des structures aéronautiques en fin de vie. L'objectif des travaux présentés ici est donc de caractériser le vieillissement et les propriétés résiduelles de pièces provenant d'avions après démantèlement, et donc après service. Plus précisément, deux matériaux de nature différente sont considérés : un alliage d'aluminium 2024-T351, constitutif d'une voilure d'A320 ; et un composite carbone/époxy T300/914, prélevé sur les voilures d'un Falcon X et d'un ATR.Pour les voilures composites, les travaux ont porté sur les effets de l'eau des stratifiés. L'évolution de la température de transition vitreuse en DMA a été étudiée en fonction du taux d'humidité présente dans le stratifié. Les résultats d'essais de sorption set de désorption ont été confrontés à différents modèles de diffusion. Les propriétés résiduelles ont été évaluée au travers de divers essais mécaniques. Il ressort de cette étude un très bon comportement du composite après service.Les travaux concernant la voilure métallique se focalisent sur les propriétés résiduelles en fatigue de l'alliage de voilure. Les résultats montrent qu'un durcissement structural apparaît en service, et qu'un léger abattement de la durée de vie en fatigue est observable. Cependant, le comportement à la fissuration est inchangé en comparaison avec un matériau " neuf ".Au final, ce premier retour d'expérience est positif. Il peut maintenant permettre aux avionneurs de vérifier les règles utilisées lors de la conception ou d'optimiser certains dimensionnements, mais aussi de justifier des extensions de durée de vie des avions.

abstract: A full understanding of material behavior is important for the prediction of residual useful life of aerospace structures via computational modeling. In particular, the influence of rolling-induced anisotropy on fatigue properties has not been studied extensively and it is likely to have a meaningful effect. In this work, fatigue behavior of a wrought Al alloy (2024-T351) is studied using notched uniaxial samples with load axes along either the longitudinal or transverse direction, and center notched biaxial samples (cruciforms) with a uniaxial stress state of equivalent amplitude about the bore. Local composition and crystallography were quantified before testing using Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy and Electron Backscattering Diffraction. Interrupted fatigue testing at stresses close to yielding was performed on the samples to nucleate and propagate short cracks and nucleation sites were located and characterized using standard optical and Scanning Electron Microscopy. Results show that crack nucleation occurred due to fractured particles for longitudinal dogbone/cruciform samples; while transverse samples nucleated cracks by debonded and fractured particles. Change in crack nucleation mechanism is attributed to dimensional change of particles with respect to the material axes caused by global anisotropy. Crack nucleation from debonding reduced life till matrix fracture because debonded particles are sharper and generate matrix cracks sooner than their fractured counterparts. Longitudinal samples experienced multisite crack initiation because of reduced cross sectional areas of particles parallel to the loading direction. Conversely the favorable orientation of particles in transverse samples reduced instances of particle fracture eliminating multisite cracking and leading to increased fatigue life. Cyclic tests of cruciform samples showed that crack growth favors longitudinal and transverse directions with few instances of crack growth 45 degrees (diagonal) to the rolling direction. The diagonal crack growth is attributed to stronger influences of local anisotropy on crack nucleation. It was observed that majority of the time crack nucleation is governed by the mixed influences of global and local anisotropies. Measurements of crystal directions parallel to the load on main crack paths revealed directions clustered near the {110} planes and high index directions. This trend is attributed to environmental effects as a result of cyclic testing in air. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Mechanical Engineering 2011

La gestion des flottes vieillissantes conduit à étudier les effets de la corrosion sur la tenue mécanique des structures en alliages d'aluminium, depuis les défauts de corrosion de surface jusqu'à la fissure mécaniquement active.<br />Nous avons caractérisé la sensibilité de l'alliage 2024-T351 à la corrosion intergranulaire. Il se forme en 7h d'immersion dans NaCl 0.5 M un défaut semi-elliptique de 200 µm de profondeur. Puis la corrosion intergranulaire ralentit fortement. <br />Nous avons étudié les mécanismes de propagation en fatigue à partir de ces défauts, en particulier la transition entre la corrosion intergranulaire et les fissures transgranulaires courtes de fatigue. A chaque étape de l'endommagement, une estimation des cinétiques, du Delta-K et la morphologie des défauts sont données. Deux mécanismes ont été distingués : un mécanisme de corrosion sous contrainte (cyclique) intergranulaire et un mécanisme de fatigue corrosion transgranulaire. Un critère de transition est proposé

This thesis is focused on fatigue behaviour of aluminium alloy 2024-T351 in low cycle and extremely low cycle fatigue regime. Test specimens were firstly subjected to quasi-static tensile and compression tests to establish basic mechanical properties of the experimental material. Fatigue tests were conducted in strain-control mode, when cyclic plastic response and S-N curves were determined. All of the experiments were conducted at room temperature. Shapes of mechanical hysteresis loops are dependent on the strain amplitude and clearly exhibit cyclic plasticity of the alloy. Cyclic deformation curve was fitted by power regression function and subsequently compared with the tensile test. Experimental data of the S-N curves were fitted by Manson-Coffin and Wöhler-Basquin law. The discrepancy of the fatigue data was observed in the extremely low cycle fatigue regime. Based on this phenomenon, new regression function was used to overcome shortening of fatigue life in the extremely low cycle regime.