Fatigue fracture of high-strength Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy

X-ray diffractometry(XRD), optical microscopy(OM), scanning electron microscopy(SEM) were used to study the fatigue fracture of the T7451 Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy (470 °C, 60 min+115 °C, 8 h+165 °C, 16 h). The study reveals mainly the microscopic structure of the alloy in the process of crack formation and crack growth. The fatigue fracture is characterized by three zones: fatigue crack source zone, fatigue crack propagation zone and fatigue fracture zone. The fatigue damage preferably incubates at the fractured inclusion particles at or near (about 25 μm) the specimen free surfaces, and these brittle Fe-rich intermetallic inclusion particles are (7–10) μm×(11–14) μm in size. Some features such as “feather-like”, “river and range” and boundary extrusions can be observed in the fatigue propagation zone, and in the fatigue fracture zone the surface is rough and uneven.