High cycle fatigue behavior of as-extruded ZK60 magnesium alloy

Tensile and high cycle fatigue properties of hot extruded ZK60 magnesium alloy have been investigated, in comparison to that of hot-extruded plus T5 heat-treated ZK60 magnesium alloy which was named as ZK60-T5. High cycle fatigue tests were carried out at a stress rate (R) of −1 and a frequency of 100 Hz using hour-glass-shaped round specimens with a gage diameter of 5.8 mm. The results show that tensile strength greatly improved and elongation is also slightly enhanced after T5 heat treatment, and the fatigue strength (at 10⁷ cycles) of ZK60 magnesium alloy increases from 140 to 150 MPa after T5 heat treatment, i.e., the improvement of 7% in fatigue strength has been achieved. Results of microstructure observation suggest that improvement of mechanical properties of ZK60 magnesium alloy is due to precipitation strengthening phase and texture strengthening by T5 heat treatment. In addition, fatigue crack initiations of ZK60 and ZK60-T5 magnesium alloys were observed to occur from the specimen surface and crack propagation was characterized by striation-like features coupled with secondary cracks.