Low cycle thermal fatigue of aluminum alloy cylinder head in consideration of changing metrology microstructure

To meet several marketing demands, development of new aluminum alloys which can be used for future high-efficiency diesel engines has been widely pursued. Especially, cylinder heads (hereafter referred to as “head(s)”) are used at high combustion pressure and very high temperature, which makes it difficult to achieve a structure with light weight and high rigidity. In this study, aluminum alloy A356 (Al-Si-Mg series) which is a major head material, were conducted the thermal fatigue tests. Thus, the authors focused on the changing of material characteristics (hardness and stress-strain curves as for macroscopic characteristic and microstructure as for microscopic characteristic) during the test. This paper deals with the effects of artificial aging on two aluminum alloys A356, which have been often used for engine cylinder heads. The aluminum alloys were artificially aged under several different conditions after T6 heat treatment. The alloys were tested for fatigue characteristics as thermo-mechanical fatigue failure. The microstructure was observed by TEM to see the effects on microstructure in terms of fatigue failure. In addition, we examined the microstructure of an actual head after a durability test, and tried to find out whether material test conditions above mentioned were reasonable. Finally, the relationship between the microstructure changes and the low cycle thermal fatigue is discussed.