Research on active load reducing optimization strategy for 6061Al low cycle fatigue cropping process based on crack propagation mode transformation

Low cycle fatigue cropping technology is a new type of cropping technology with advantages such as no chip waste and low load need. Numerous studies have shown that increasing the fatigue frequency or increasing the displacement load can improve the cropping efficiency, but at the same time, it will reduce the quality of the cross-section and cannot achieve a balance between high efficiency and high quality of cross-section. In response to this issue, this paper found the phenomenon of transition of fracture modes (from fatigue mode to tensile fracture mode) of 6061Al material in LCFC process, and proposed the Active Load Reducing Optimization Strategy for 6061Al in LCFC, which achieves a significant improvement in quality of cross-section with a slight loss of cropping efficiency. Firstly, this paper studied the crack fracture mechanism of 6061Al bar under different displacement loads in the LCFC process. It was found that the transition of crack propagation mode in 6061Al- LCFC process was the main reason for the increase in cross-section roughness. The crack propagation mode changed from fatigue propagation to tensile fracture propagation during the LCFC process, and the roughness of the area significantly increased under the tensile fracture propagation mode. Further research has found that the fundamental reason for the contradiction between the cropping efficiency and section quality of 6061Al is the change in time of crack propagation mode transition and tensile fracture zone area under different displacement loads. Finally, the LCFC process was modeled in a time dimension using acoustic emission(AE) technology, and it was divided into three stages according to the AE signals and the fracture mechanism. As a result, an active load reducing optimization strategy for LCFC process was developed to delay the occurrence of tensile fracture propagation modes. Experiments have shown that compared to the traditional LCFC cropping strategy using constant displacement loads, the active load reducing strategy proposed in this paper can reduce the proportion of tensile fracture area, achieve a significant improvement in quality of cross-section with a slight loss of cropping efficiency, thus achieving a balance between efficiency and section quality to some extent. At the same time, an LCFC process section quality efficiency evaluation index with dual weights of efficiency and section quality has been proposed, which can assist in selecting LCFC active load reducing strategy parameters with consideration of efficiency and section quality weights.