Evaluation of tensile and low-cycle fatigue properties at elevated temperatures in piston aluminum-silicon alloys with and without nano-clay-particles and heat treatment

In this article, mechanical and low-cycle fatigue (LCF) properties of piston aluminum alloys were characterized. In addition, the effect of the reinforcement including nano-clay-particles and the heat treatment was also investigated. For this purpose, nano-particles were added to the aluminum alloy and then samples were heattreated. Fully-reversed strain-controlled LCF tests were conducted besides tensile experiments. The strain amplitudes were set to 0.20%, 0.25%, 0.30%, 0.35%, 0.40% and 0.45% under the strain rate of 1%/s. They were repeated at four different temperatures (25 degrees C, 200 degrees C, 250 degrees C and 300 degrees C). Obtained results showed that there were no significant differences between mechanical properties such as the yield stress, the ultimate stress and the elastic modulus of specimens due to heat treat and nano-clay-particles. However, a little increment of the elongation of the heat-treated reinforced sample was observed. The reinforcement was not an effective parameter on the LCF lifetime at lower temperatures. However, the LCF lifetime of the base material decreased significantly by the reinforcement at 300 degrees C.