P.C.Aruna Kumara, P.Dinesh
Study of crack growth and its propagation under fatigue load is important as the crack growth can end up in premature failure of components. Such failures have to be avoided especially in power plants and aerospace applications since the components in these applications are subjected to extreme temperatures. In the present work, studies have been carried on the fatigue crack growth of aluminium 2024 alloy. The test specimens were annealed and cryotreated and subjected to fatigue crack growth (FCG) tests as per ASTM E-647 standards. The fatigue crack growth behaviour has been analysed and explained based on the microstructure. The FCG test results of the heat treated and untreated specimens clearly indicate significant improvement of the fatigue life and fracture toughness of cryotreated specimens.