AE Characteristics of Fatigue Crack Opening and Closure in Structural Aluminum Alloy

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of crack opening and closure in the AE activities during fatigue test. Laboratory experiment using various materials and test conditions were carried out to identify AE characteristics of fatigue crack propagation. Compact tension specimens of 2024-T4 and 6061-T6 aluminum alloy were prepared for fatigue test. AE activities were analyzed based on the phase of the loading cycle. Generally, most of AE were generated when the crack begins' opening and the crack closes fully, whereas a few in the pull opening of the crack. Also AE activity in the peak loading of cycle was different with each specimen. However, in the same material, AE activity was not affected by the change of cyclic frequency (0.1, 0.2, 1.0Hz). It was found that AE activities during crack opening and closure depend on material properties such as micro-structure, tensile strength and yield strength