Fatigue, Fracture and Microstructure Relationships of an Aluminum Automobile Component

Aluminum alloys are progressively used in the automobile industry due to several advantages such as low specific weight, good formability, good corrosion resistance and a nice surface appearance. The standard production forming processes such as extrusion and forging, can give rise to large variations in the tensile, fatigue and fracture properties. In AlMgSi alloys (6061, 6062, 6060 and 6082), yield stress have been shown to have only a weak dependence on grain size. However, a large part of the variations in other properties can be traced back to differences in grain size.
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