The Prediction of isothermal cyclic plasticity in 7175-T7351 aluminium alloy with particular emphasis on thermal ageing effects

Rapid thermal ageing has been observed in the literature for certain aerospace aluminium alloys under conditions which are foreseeable in their intended component applications. While several experimental programs have explored this phenomenon in the laboratory, efforts to incorporate these effects in unified constitutive models have, to date, been lacking. In the present work, a modified elastic-viscoplastic material model has been fitted to 7175-T7351 aluminium alloy data under fully-reversed uniaxial (strain-controlled) isothermal loading conditions at 160 °C and 200 °C. These temperatures were chosen in order to represent nominal and extreme (but still operationally relevant) conditions experienced by aero-engine gearbox components. The modified elastic-viscoplastic model is able to accurately predict the hysteresis loops of the strain-controlled fatigue data of each sample at 160 °C and 200 °C. Additionally, it was found that the isotropic hardening can be effectively de-coupled into material ageing and mechanical softening components.