Thermo-mechanical fatigue of castiron for engine applications

Abstract: In an engine component the repeated start-stop cycles cause temporal and local inhomogeneous temperatures, which in turn lead to a type of low-frequency loading, plastic deformation and eventually failure due to thermo-mechanical fatigue. Simultaneously, high-frequency mechanical loading arises from the cyclic combustion pressure and from road induced vibrations. These types of loadings that mainly are in the elastic region are usually denoted high cycle fatigue (HCF). In order to improve efficiency, power density and to reduce emissions, future truck engines will be subjected to higher temperatures and higher combustion pressures which will affect the service life of the different engine components. As a consequence, there is a need to determine the limitations of the used alloys under these service conditions as exactly as possible. In this master thesis work the fatigue properties of one grey iron (EN-GJL 250) and one compacted graphite iron (EN-GJV 400) has been investigated under realistic loading conditions. The results show that a change from the grey iron to the compacted graphite iron will result in a significant increase of the fatigue life. The investigation also reveal that the life will increase significantly if the maximum temperature can be decreased tens of degrees. Further, the results indicate that addition of a relatively small HCF load may give a large decrease of the fatigue life. Keywords:Thermo-mechanical fatigue, TMF, CGI, LGI, fatigue, thermal strain.