The effect of anodic oxide coating on the fatigue behaviour of AA6082 with an ultrafine-grained microstructure

In this work, the high-cycle fatigue behaviour of the precipitation hardening aluminium wrought alloy AA6082 was investigated for a conventionally-grained and an ultrafine-grained substrate condition, with each a hard and a soft electrolytic anodic oxide (EAO) coating. The investigations were focused on the susceptibility of the coatings to anodising-and fatigue-induced cracking of the coatings and its impact on the fatigue life. For both substrate materials, the fatigue strength of the coated specimens was significantly reduced compared to the uncoated materials. Considering the resistance to crack initiation in the coating, the soft-anodised coatings were found to be superior compared to the hard-anodised ones. Moreover, the coatings on the ultrafine-grained substrate showed an enhanced resistance to anodising-induced as well as fatigue-induced cracking. However, it is supposed that the lower resistance to crack transition from the coating into the substrate is one of the most important factors which strongly limits the fatigue life of the EAO-coated specimens. This might be the reason why the fatigue strength of the ultrafine-grained substrates is relatively low, despite their higher resistance to crack initiation.