Issue 30

S. Baragetti et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 30 (2014) 84-94; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.30.12 84 Focussed on: Fracture and Structural Integrity related Issues SCC and Corrosion Fatigue characterization of a Ti-6Al-4V alloy in a corrosive environment – experiments and numerical models S. Baragetti University of Bergamo – Dept. of Engineering – viale Marconi 5, 24044 Dalmine (BG) GITT – Centre on Innovation Management and Technology Transfer – University of Bergamo – via Salvecchio 19, 24129 Bergamo sergio.baragetti@unibg.it F. Villa University of Bergamo – Dept. of Engineering – viale Marconi 5, 24044 Dalmine (BG) francesco.villa@unibg.it A BSTRACT . In the present article, a review of the complete characterization in different aggressive media of a Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy, performed by the Structural Mechanics Laboratory of the University of Bergamo, is presented. The light alloy has been investigated in terms of corrosion fatigue, by axial fatigue testing ( R = 0.1) of smooth and notched flat dog- bone specimens in laboratory air, 3.5% wt. NaCl–water mixture and methanol–water mixture at different concentrations. The first corrosive medium reproduced a marine environment, while the latter was used as a reference aggressive environment. Results showed that a certain corrosion fatigue resistance is found in a salt water medium, while the methanol environment caused a significant drop – from 23% to 55% in terms of limiting stress reduction – of the fatigue resistance of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy, even for a solution containing 5% of methanol. A Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC) experimental campaign at different methanol concentrations has been conducted over slightly notched dog-bone specimens ( K t = 1.18), to characterize the corrosion resistance of the alloy under quasi-static load conditions. Finally, crack propagation models have been implemented to predict the crack propagation rates for smooth specimens, by using Paris, Walker and Kato-Deng-Inoue-Takatsu propagation formulae. The different outcomes from the forecasting numerical models were compared with experimental results, proposing modeling procedures for the numerical simulation of fatigue behavior of a Ti-6Al-4V alloy. K EYWORDS . Ti6Al4V; Corrosion Fatigue; Stress Corrosion Cracking; Crack propagation; FEM. I NTRODUCTION he Titanium high strength-to-mass ratio Ti-6Al-4V alloy is one of the most widespread materials in advanced engineering applications, especially when high resistance is required for critical, low-weight components. For this reason, the Ti-6Al-4V alloy is hence extremely valuable for aerospace, automotive and marine high performance structural applications [1], and it has been widely applied to the biomedical sector, due to its biocompatibility and its favorable interaction with the body environment [2]. Another reason which explains the high diffusion of this particular alloy in the most demanding applications is motivated by its high resistance to a wide spectrum of corrosive environments, with respect to other Titanium based alloys, due to its inclination to form protective surface oxides [3, 4]. Sanderson et al. underlined this aspect, by concluding that the Ti-6Al-4V alloy is not susceptible to Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC) in seawater, if considering the results of U-bend specimens [5]. In another work by Sanderson et al. [6], on the same specimen geometry and test procedures, a significant SCC effect was found for Ti-6Al-4V alloy in pure methanol T