Proposal of a stress-based isothermal LCF life model for Aluminium alloy cylinder heads

The paper presents and discusses the calibration procedure and the results related to a new easy-to-use low cycle fatigue (LCF) life prediction empirical stress-based model. The model was applied to a commercial Aluminium alloy diesel engine cylinder head. The material characterization was carried out on commercial cylinder heads made by primary AlSi9Cu1, investigating the mechanical properties on sets of specimens obtained from layers positioned at different distances from the gas face of the cylinder heads. The results of mechanical characterization and LCF model calibration parameters are presented for each layer. The material characterization was carried out at room temperature to assess the procedure and validate the model. The life assessment performance of the model was compared with the corresponding Basquin-Manson-Coffin model. The model prediction fitted the experimental data trend with a determination coefficient ranging from 0.75 to 0.98, which is globally higher with respect to the parameter fitting obtained with the Basquin-Manson-Coffin calibration. Furthermore, all life forecasts are close to the experimental results with a variance lower than 55%. A future development of the research work with further material characterization at different temperature will allow to validate and discuss the temperature dependence of the model parameters and to investigate its thermo-Mechanical Fatigue (TMF) life assessment performance.