Low-cycle Fatigue Behavior and Life Prediction of 6061-T6 Aluminum Alloy

MA Xuming; HAN Quanfeng; WANG Hui; CHEN Yizhe; HUA Lin

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1674-6457.2025.11.007

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Journal of Netshape Forming Engineering ›› 2025, Vol. 17 ›› Issue (11) : 79-92. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-6457.2025.11.007

Intelligent Processing of Advanced Materials

Low-cycle Fatigue Behavior and Life Prediction of 6061-T6 Aluminum Alloy

MA Xuming, HAN Quanfeng^*, WANG Hui, CHEN Yizhe, HUA Lin

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Abstract

The work aims to investigate the low-cycle fatigue behavior of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy, reveal the mechanisms underlying cyclic plastic deformation and fatigue crack initiation, and provide a theoretical guidance for the life assessment of lightweight alloys. First, a constitutive model incorporating the back stress evolution was established under the classical crystal plasticity framework to simulate the mechanical response of the aluminum alloy under cyclic loading. Furthermore, to evaluate the fatigue crack initiation life, two fatigue damage indicators, accumulated equivalent plastic strain and accumulated strain energy dissipation, were employed. The experimental and numerical results showed that the cyclic plastic response of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy was significantly sensitive to strain amplitude. At low strain amplitudes, the stress of the material exhibited cyclic stability. At medium strains, significant cyclic hardening was observed. However, at high strain amplitudes, the alloy initially showed cyclic hardening followed by a softening process. Fatigue damage occurred in the regions adjacent to grain boundaries and triple junctions, where indicated severely plastic strain and energy dissipation accumulate. These two fatigue indicators accurately predicted the fatigue life of the material, with the predicted life falling within a two-fold scatter band. In conclusion, the proposed constitutive model precisely describes the cyclic plastic behavior of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy at different strain amplitudes, and the selected fatigue indicator parameters show great ability in predicting the fatigue life of the material. This study validates the crystal plasticity simulation in assessing the low-cycle fatigue behavior of aluminum alloys and paves the way for the multiscale modeling of fatigue life prediction methods for the lightweight alloys.

Key words

6061-T6 aluminum alloy / low-cycle fatigue / crystal plastic finite element / fatigue indicator parameters / life prediction

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MA Xuming, HAN Quanfeng, WANG Hui, CHEN Yizhe, HUA Lin. Low-cycle Fatigue Behavior and Life Prediction of 6061-T6 Aluminum Alloy[J]. Journal of Netshape Forming Engineering. 2025, 17(11): 79-92 https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1674-6457.2025.11.007

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Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (52422510, 52373320, 52175360, 50725517, 12402129); The Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by China Association for Science and Technology (2021QNRC001); The Key R&D Program of Hubei Province (2024BAB080); Natural Science Foundation of Wuhan (2024040801020257)