Al₂O₃ nanoparticle-reinforced Al-12Si matrix composites were successfully fabricated by hot pressing and subsequent hot extrusion. The influence of weight fraction of Al₂O₃ particles on the microstructure, mechanical properties, and the corresponding strengthening mechanisms were investigated in detail. The Al₂O₃ particles are uniformly distributed in the matrix, when 2 and 5 wt. % of Al₂O₃ particles were added to the Al-12Si matrix. Significant agglomeration can be found in composites with 10 wt. % addition of Al₂O₃ nanoparticles. The maximum hardness, the yield strength, and tensile strength were obtained for the composite with 5 wt. % Al₂O₃ addition, which showed an increase of about ~11%, 23%, and 26%, respectively, compared with the Al-12Si matrix. Meanwhile, the elongation increased to about ~30%. The contribution of different mechanisms including Orowan strengthening, thermal mismatch strengthening, and load transfer strengthening were analyzed. It was shown that the thermal mismatch strengthening has a more significant contribution to strengthening these composites than the Orowan and load transfer strengthening mechanisms.

In this paper, 6mm thick 6082-T6 high-strength aluminium alloy is taken as the research object, and CLOOS ROMAT-3500 industrial robot MIG welder is used for welding. High-cycle fatigue test is carried out on welded joint and 6082-T6 base metal. Microstructure, microhardness, tensile properties and fatigue properties are studied, and fatigue fracture is observed and analyzed. The test results show that: equiaxed crystals exist in the center of the weld. Broken equiaxed crystals are found in the weld due to stirring in the molten pool, a large number of pore and columnar crystal layers are found at the junction of the two beads. A small amount of pore and cellular dendrite are found in the fusion zone. A softening zone with a minimum hardness of 65.5HV exists in the heat affected zone(HAZ). The conditional fatigue limits for base metal and weld specimens are 77.26MPa and 48.69MPa at the set target cycle of 10⁷ respectively. In fatigue fracture, there are a lot of cleavage fracture characteristics and ductile fracture characteristics. The crack initiation is quasi-cleavage fracture characteristic. In the past studies, I have studied the fatigue life of joints, but as the research progresses, I believe that the fatigue behavior and fatigue damage mechanism plays an important role in fatigue life. In this paper, Fatigue fracture process is analyzed by correlation calculation of stress intensity factor. Two crack initiation modes are proposed based on the welding process. The first is fatigue crack initiation caused by stress concentration at the grain boundary where hydrogen elements converged, the second is fatigue crack initiation caused by the gap between equiaxed and columnar crystals inside and outside the central pore of the weld.

In this experiment, the T-joint of a 6082 aluminum alloy was welded by metal inert gas (MIG) welding and a fatigue test was carried out at room temperature. The mechanisms of generating pores and of fatigue fracture in welded joints are revealed in the case of incomplete penetration. There are two main types of pores: pores that are not welded and pores that are near the upper weld line of the weld. During welding, bubbles in the molten pool are adsorbed on the surface oxide film that is not penetrated, and cannot be floated to form pores; since it is a T-shaped welded joint, the molten pool is overhanged during welding, thereby forming pores near the fusion line. The fatigue strength of the welded joint based on the S–N curve at 10⁷ cycles is estimated to be 37.6 MPa, which can reliably be predicted in engineering applications. Fatigue tests show that fatigue cracks are all generated in the pores of the incomplete penetration, and it and the pores form a long precrack, which leads to large stress concentration, and the fracture occurs under a small applied load. Grain morphology around the pores also has a large effect on the fatigue properties of the T-weld joint. In the weld’s fatigue fracture, it was found that the crack stable-extension zone exhibited ductile-fracture characteristics, and the instantaneous fault zone is composed of a large number of tear-type dimples showing ductile fractures.