(MDPI, 2017) Luri Irigoyen, Rodrigo; Luis Pérez, Carmelo Javier; León Iriarte, Javier; Fuertes Bonel, Juan Pablo; Salcedo Pérez, Daniel; Puertas Arbizu, Ignacio; Ingeniería Mecánica, Energética y de Materiales; Mekanika, Energetika eta Materialen Ingeniaritza
Over the last few years there has been an increasing interest in the study and development
of processes that make it possible to obtain ultra-fine grained materials. Although there exists
a large number of published works related to the improvement of the mechanical properties in
these materials, there are only a few studies that analyse their in-service behaviour (fatigue and
wear). In order to bridge the gap, in this present work, the fatigue and wear results obtained for
connecting rods manufactured by using two different aluminium alloys (AA5754 and AA5083)
previously deformed by severe plastic deformation (SPD), using Equal Channel Angular Pressing
(ECAP), in order to obtain the ultrafine grain size in the processed materials are shown. For both
aluminium alloys, two initial states were studied: annealed and ECAPed. The connecting rods were
manufactured from the previously processed materials by using isothermal forging. Fatigue and wear
experiments were carried out in order to characterize the in-service behaviour of the components.
A comparative study of the results was made for both initial states of the materials. Furthermore,
Finite Element Modelling (FEM) simulations were used in order to compare experimental results
with those obtained from simulations. In addition, dimensional wear coefficients were found for
each of the aluminium alloys and initial deformation states. This research work aims to progress the
knowledge of the behaviour of components manufactured from ultrafine grain materials.
