Evaluation of Fatigue Damage of Metal Matrix Composite by LFB Acoustic Microscopy

Composites composed of a precipitation harden 2124 alloy matrix reinforced by SiC whiskers, which are fabricated by powder metallurgy, are susceptible to fatigue damage due to the pile-up of moving dislocation and the microcrack initiation along SiC-Al interfaces, especially at the external surfaces of a body. The initial process, such as pile-up of dislocation or microcrack, that corresponds to the stage I during fatigue failure process are too small to be detected and characterized by conventional ultrasonic technique. This paper describes the applicability of an acoustic microscope with Line-Focus-Beam(LFB) lens of 225MHz to evaluate fatigue damage of SiC whiskers reinforced Al alloy. The specimens which were 6.6mm thick, 13mm wide, and 105mm long in the gage section were fatigued in tension-tension under load control. The velocity of leaky surface and leaky pseudosurface acoustic waves are obtained by FFT analysis technique from V(z) curve which is a record of output of piezoelectric transducer. These results are discussed with the change of number of fatigue cycles. The result obtained by acoustic microscope is compared with that by ultrasonic technique generated at 5MHz with conventional surface wave transducers