A new paradigm for creating fatigue-resistant light metals

90%的金属部件失效是由疲劳引起的。疲劳是由于使用过程中的交变应力循环引起的，这会导致在低于材料静态强度的应力水平下发生故障。疲劳是复杂工程合金的“阿喀琉斯之踵”，并对采用新的轻量化解决方案来提高运输中的燃油效率造成了重大限制。尤其是铝合金的疲劳性能是出了名的差。该项目旨在开发一种新型的耐疲劳轻合金，其性能在服役期间得到改善，而不是恶化。这一发展是建立在对组织演变与变形耦合的新认识基础上的。

Ninety per cent of failures of metal components are caused by fatigue. Fatigue arises from cycles of alternating stress during service which lead to failure at stress levels surprisingly short of the material's static strength. Fatigue is the 'Achilles heel' of complex engineering alloys and places significant limitations on adopting new lightweight solutions for improvements to fuel efficiency in transportation. Aluminium alloys in particular have notoriously poor fatigue performance. This project aims to develop a new class of fatigue resistant light alloys whose properties improve, rather than deteriorate, during service. This development is based on a new understanding of the coupling of microstructure evolution and deformation.