Engineering Failure Analysis 13 (2006) 9971004 www.elsevier.

com/locate/engfailanal

Fatigue life of an aerospace aluminium alloy subjected to cold expansion and a cyclic temperature regime
J.M. Mnguez
a

a,*

, J. Vogwell

Departamento de Fsica Aplicada II, Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnologa, Universidad del Pas Vasco, Aptdo. 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain b Department of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK Received 1 March 2005; accepted 4 April 2005 Available online 2 September 2005

Abstract This paper describes experimental work that was carried out to study the inuence of cyclic temperature variation on the fatigue life of fastener holes in an aerospace aluminium alloy after they had been subjected to cold expansion. Three dierent batches of specimen were produced for fatigue testing. The rst samples had the fastener hole left in the as drilled state, the second and third batches had their drilled holes cold expanded by directly force tting an oversized pin through the hole. In addition, the third batch with cold expanded holes was then subjected to a representative range ight cycle temperature variations. The results reveal that the cyclic temperature variation, rather than relaxing the residual stress and thus the cold expansion eect, as was feared, has actually extended the fatigue life of the cold expanded holed specimens tested. It is believed that this is because the temperature changes have tended to neutralise the local peak residual stresses which can occur at the surface faces. 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Fatigue; Aluminium alloy; Cold expansion; Cyclic temperature regime

1. Introduction Aircraft structural design brings together several, often competing, requirements. Two of the primary goals are weight saving (which implies minimising material usage) and increasing the safe operational life (thereby increasing the resistance of the structure to fatigue and fracture). Although these requirements appear contradictory, especially when considering the actual fatigue working conditions under which a plane operates, they do however, represent the optimum design objectives.
*

Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 94 601 2000; fax: +34 94 464 8500. E-mail address: wdpmiroj@lg.ehu.es (J.M. Mnguez).

1350-6307/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.engfailanal.2005.04.005

998

J.M. Mnguez, J. Vogwell / Engineering Failure Analysis 13 (2006) 9971004

During recent decades many improvements have been made in structural design in order to achieve an optimum in terms of minimising weight and achieving safe life and aw tolerance. These have resulted from gaining a better understanding of the fatigue and fracture behaviour of aerospace quality materials and also from improvements in modern manufacturing techniques and design practices. Numerical methods, such as the nite element technique, for example, have enabled the optimization of the stress distribution throughout a critical structure to be achieved and so the best use of its material. Also, the pressure for extending the operational lifetimes of both commercial and military aircraft results in growing concern about the ability of the materials used in their components to endure the many repeated cyclic loadings experienced in regular service. In terms of treatments which can be applied to a fastener hole, the cold expansion technique, in particular, has been the subject of much research in recent years [111]. Indeed, cold expansion has been used widely in aircraft manufacture for improving the resistance of fastener holes against fatigue failure. This is because it helps reduce the stress concentration inherent with such holes by introducing compressive residual stresses around the hole surface. Nevertheless, recently published research ndings [12,13] question the anticipated gains achieved by some cold expansion techniques and claim that under certain circumstances, cold expansion might even do more harm than good as tensile residual stresses can occur. Also, there is concern as to whether the imposed residual stresses actually remain or indeed relax with time under repeated straining or temperature uctuation. The work reported in this paper has sought to investigate the situation by simulating typical temperature variations experienced by an aircraft between ying at high altitude and landing at airports in hot climates.

2. Ideal cold expansion and some practical limitations Cold expansion has long been used as a means of improving the resistance at a hole to failure by fatigue. Eectively it is achieved when the hole surface is expanded locally beyond the materials yield point. Once the load is removed, some negative residual stresses are caused because the material radially further away will have only elastically deformed and as it tries to return to the original form it meets less resistance from the yielded material and so the hole shrinks slightly. This contraction means that there are negative residual stresses remaining at the hole edge. These are benecial as they tend to cancel with the stress resulting from any external loading thus reducing the eective stress concentration at the hole edge. As the net stress magnitude is reduced at the critical edge of hole location so the likelihood of a fatigue crack initiating under uctuating loading is reduced. Achieving a uniform negative residual stress throughout the depth of a hole is ideal but dicult to achieve in practise due to a number of reasons. One is the eect of the changing material constraint through the depth of the hole. At the entrance and exit plate surfaces of a hole, the edge is constrained radially but not axially on the open surface by other material. However, within the hole the edge is constrained axially in both directions because there is material on either side of it. As the cold expansion process yields (and thus plastically deforms) the material around the hole surface, at the surface edges it will be able to bulge out but not within the hole depth. This dierence in axial constraint can mean that smaller residual stress magnitudes occur at the entrance and exit edges compared to elsewhere in the hole depth. In addition, the action of the cold expansion device may also lead to variations in residual stress distribution. Typically an oversized object, such as a ball bearing or tapered pin, with or without a protective sleeve, is forced through a fastener hole (see Fig. 1). The direction in which the object is forced will inuence the resulting residual stress distribution depending on whether the forcing direction is opposing the edge bulging eect or assisting it. The variation in the residual stress distributions through the depth of a hole has been widely reported both using experimental tests [4] and also using nite element simulations of the cold expansion process

 J.M. Mnguez, J. Vogwell / Engineering Failure Analysis 13 (2006) 9971004

999

Fig. 1. Direct methods for cold forming a hole.

[5]. The amount of variation can be signicant and will depend on the dierent conditions prevailing such as the amount of expansion applied, the plate thickness and the material used and its properties. Under certain conditions even positive residual stresses have been reported and this means that there is an increase in the stress concentration. At such a critical location this would tend to reduce the fatigue resistance rather than increase it. With cold expansion techniques resulting in such varied residual stress patterns at the application stage, the question arises as to whether the magnitudes and distributions are time and environment dependent also. This is especially important with aircraft structural components which face severe temperature uctuation under normal operational conditions. For example, a grounded aircraft can readily experience temperatures up to 40 C in tropical locations but when ying these temperatures can fall to well below zero and even as low as 60 C. Whether such temperature uctuations aect the residual stress distributions, and thus the fatigue resistance of the hole, is an area which this work has sought to investigate. 3. Test specimens and cyclic temperature variation The investigation was carried out using specimens made of an aircraft grade wrought aluminium alloy BSL165-T6. This material had been annealed at 413 C, solution heat treated at 502 C and articially aged with T6 temper conditions, so that it had the required mechanical and thermal properties, which make it an ideal material for use in aircraft fuselage and wing structures. The mechanical and thermal characteristics were the following: Density: 2.80 g/cc. Elastic modulus in tension: 72.4 GPa. Elastic modulus in compression: 73.8 GPa. Poissons ratio: 0.33. Tensile strength: 450 MPa.

1000

J.M. Mnguez, J. Vogwell / Engineering Failure Analysis 13 (2006) 9971004

Liquidus temperature: 638 C. Solidus temperature: 507 C. This material with these properties is suitable for extrusion and for use as ttings, wheels and major structural components, requiring high operation strength and even at elevated temperatures. The alloy was supplied in sheet form 5 mm thick and cut into specimens of the form and dimensions shown in Fig. 2. The 4.8 mm diameter hole in the center of each sample was drilled using a pillar drill and a standard drill bit. Three batches of six samples were each prepared; one with the holes left with no further treatment in the as drilled state having neither cold expansion nor temperature cycling. The second batch had the holes cold expanded but with no varying temperature treatment and the third batch had the holes cold expanded and also were subjected to a cyclic heat regime. The cold expansion was applied on the second and third groups of specimens by pushing a hardened steel pin through the holes, for which a manual vice was used. To allow the pin to fully pass through the specimen a hardened steel washer was placed on the reverse side of it, under the hole. The dimensions of the pin and of the washer are shown in Fig. 3 and the interference on hole diameter was 5%. Finally, the third group of specimens, after the cold expansion treatment, were subjected to a simulated service temperature range for which the temperature was elevated to 80 C, held for 2 h and then reduced to 70 C, repeating the cycle shown in Fig. 4 ten times. Although this is considered a more severe temperature range than most aircraft will actually be subjected to, the number of cycles falls far short of, and thus is less severe than the number of ights likely to be completed. The temperature regime used was chosen for convenience as the primary purpose of the research was to establish whether a radical change in temperature regime actually aected the residual temperature distribution and how. The temperature of the specimens was raised using an oven set at 80 C and reduced by submerging them in a vacuum ask containing solid carbon dioxide (dry ice). The temperature was checked using a liquid thermometer and kept at the low value by adding dry ice as required. It is noted that the high temperature (80 C) is well below the solidus temperature (507 C) and so the solidus condition of the specimens remains stable during the cycling of the temperature.

Fig. 2. Plain lleted bar sample with a central hole.

 J.M. Mnguez, J. Vogwell / Engineering Failure Analysis 13 (2006) 9971004

1001

Fig. 3. Pin and washer used for the cold expansion of the holes.

Fig. 4. Temperature simulated ight cycle.

4. Fatigue testing results The specimens were classied into three batches corresponding to the three groups described above. All the specimens were tested on a servo-hydraulic fatigue testing machine (Instron 1332), submitting them to constant amplitude cycling loading and recording the number of cycles of their fatigue life before failure.

1002

J.M. Mnguez, J. Vogwell / Engineering Failure Analysis 13 (2006) 9971004

Fig. 5. Sinusoidal load pattern as applied to all samples.

The loading cycle in all cases was tensile and followed a sinusoidal pattern whose parameters are dened in Fig. 5. The stress range went from a minimum value of zero up to a maximum value. In this way the mean stress coincides with the stress amplitude and both are half the maximum stress. The maximum load was increased from 6 KN to 16 KN from the rst sample to the sixth one of every batch. Hence the stress amplitude in all batches went from 24 to 64 MPa. The results obtained are given in Table 1. It is noted that the tests were not carried out beyond 107 cycles but were stopped when the number of cycles reached that number. Consequently, when no failure was registered the number of cycles would have been greater than 107.

5. Discussion The eect of the results given in Table 1 are most apparent when displayed graphically as SN curves as shown in Fig. 6. Although a relatively small number of specimens were tested, as Fig. 6 shows the results for all three batches show consistent trends. The batch 1 specimens with the holes as drilled have produced the shortest life. Results are improved for batch 2, the samples which are cold expanded, and further improved in batch 3, due the cycling temperature treatment. The fatigue life improvement resulting from the specimens whose holes were cold expanded is not a surprising result. Although a direct (that is sleeveless) method of cold expansion was used, and a fairly high expansion rate (5%), only compressive residual stresses would be expected under these conditions and so a general lowering of eective stress concentration factor was anticipated.

Table 1 Fatigue life of dierent specimens under dierent loading conditions Specimen Mean stress (MPa) Stress amplitude (MPa) Cycles to failure Batch 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 24 32 40 48 56 64 24 32 40 48 56 64 No failure 6,950,460 585,970 268,300 124,860 56,970 Batch 2 No failure No failure 1,050,470 489,590 246,250 128,110 Batch 3 No failure No failure 1,276,720 677,760 304,990 131,240

Batch 1: as drilled. Batch 2: cold expanded. Batch 3: cold expanded and heat treated.

 J.M. Mnguez, J. Vogwell / Engineering Failure Analysis 13 (2006) 9971004

1003

Fig. 6. Fatigue life of the samples corresponding to the three batches, when varying the stress amplitude of the loading cycles.

The marked improvement of the batch 3 samples, however, was a surprise. The concern and what lead to the completion of this research was to study the inuence of the cycling temperature after cold expansion because it was feared that it might relax and creep back towards the preyielded state. Therefore, the significant improvement in the fatigue life of the samples of batch 3 was unexpected. It would appear that the temperature cycling has contributed a positive eect and prolonged fatigue life. This phenomenon is thought to be due to two main reasons. Firstly, as the compressive residual stress distribution produced by the cold expansion technique was probably not uniform to start with, it would appear that the temperature regime has caused the residual stresses to diuse a little but not entirely. Importantly, it would seem that the residual stresses have reduced at the critical hole entrance and exit corner sites which are the prime locations for fatigue crack initiation. Secondly, it may be that the cycling temperature regime has slightly altered the microstructure of the aluminium alloy causing some recovery. However, as the maximum temperature of the cycle was well below the materials solidus temperature and that used for heat treatment, this would not be expected to be very signicant. Despite using a fairly simple cold expansion method, the consistent improvement in fatigue lives obtained from all treated specimens helps justify why the treatment applied to aerospace aluminium alloys is recognised as a positive practice. Eectively, this test work remains ongoing and the encouraging results that are presented are leading to further fatigue test programmes with even more realistic applied temperature regimes and using a range of dierent cold expansion conditions.

6. Conclusion Only a limited number of fatigue tests were carried out and so the generation of full SN curves is not possible. Nevertheless from the trend shown in Fig. 6 it can be concluded that subjecting cold expanded fastener holes to an elevated and lowered cyclic temperature regime has had a consistently positive eect on the fatigue resistance thus resulting in increased fatigue lives. It is believed that the raised temperature allows any uneven residual stresses along the hole edge and through its depth to diuse a little and change towards the ideal uniform compressive stress distribution thereby improving resistance to fatigue.

1004

J.M. Mnguez, J. Vogwell / Engineering Failure Analysis 13 (2006) 9971004

Paradoxically, had a more ecient cold expansion technique been used (producing a more even compressive residual stress distribution through the hole depth) then the temperature changes may have been less benecial. These has yet to be established though.

Acknowledgement This work was partially nanced by the Universidad del Pas Vasco (research project 1/UPV 00060.310E-13902/2001).

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Wanlin G. Eng Fract Mech 1993;46(3):46572. Kliman V, Bily M, Prochacka J. Int J Fatigue 1993;15(2):1017. Hermann R. Eng Fract Mech 1994;48(6):81935. Priest M, Poussard CG, Pavier MJ, Smith DJ. Exp Mech 1995;35(4):3616. Poussard CG, Pavier MJ, Smith DJ. J Strain Anal 1995;30(4):291304. Ozdemir AT, Edwards L. J Strain Anal 1996;31(6):41321. Priest M. The experimental characterization of residual stresses and fatigue crack growth in the vicinity of cold-worked holes in Al 2024-T351, PhD Thesis, University of Bristol, UK; 1997. Pavier MJ, Poussard CG, Smith DJ. J Strain Anal 1997;32(4):287300. Ball DL, Lowry DR. Fatigue Fract Eng Mater Struct 1998;21(1):1735. Papanikos P, Meguid SA. Int J Mech Sci 1998;40(10):101928. Ozdemir AT, Hermann R. J Mater Sci 1999;34(3):124352. Vogwell J, Chakherlou TN, Mnguez JM. The eect of cold expansion on fatigue resistance of fastener holes. In: 10th International Congress of Fracture, Honolulu; 2001. Chakherlou TN, An evaluation of cold expansion methods used for improving the fatigue life of fastener holes in aerospace aluminium alloy 7075-T6, PhD Thesis, University of Bath, UK; 2002.