Mechanical Properties and Very High Cycle Fatigue Behavior of Peak-Aged AA7021 Alloy

The effect of heat treatment condition on non-Cu AA7021 alloy was investigated with respect to mechanical properties and very high cycle fatigue behavior. With a focus on the influence of heat treatment, AA7021 alloy was solution heat-treated at 470 degrees C for 4 h and aged at 124 degrees C. Comparing the results of solution-treated and peak-aged AA7021 alloy shows a significant increase in Vickers hardness and tensile strength. The hardness of AA7021 alloy was increased by 65% after aging treatment, and both tensile strength and yield strength were increased by 50-80 MPa in each case. In particular, this paper investigated the very high cycle fatigue behavior of AA7021 alloy with the ultrasonic fatigue testing method using a resonance frequency of 20 kHz. The fatigue results showed that the stress amplitude of peak-aged AA7021 alloy was about 50 MPa higher than the solution-treated alloy at the same fatigue cycles. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the size of the crack initiation site was larger after peak aging than after solution treatment.