To investigate the effect of alternate corrosion and fatigue on fatigue crack growth characterization of 2024-T4 aluminum alloy, the pure fatigue test, “corrosion + fatigue” test (commonly known as pre-corrosion fatigue), and the “fatigue + corrosion + fatigue” alternating test of single-sided notched specimen of 2024-T4 aluminum alloy were carried out. The fatigue crack life of alternate corrosion and fatigue is longer than that of the pre-corrosion fatigue when the corrosion time is the same. And the more the times of alternating, the longer the crack growth life will be. This is mainly because the fatigue crack growth rate will change suddenly, which will have a certain hysteresis effect on the fatigue crack growth. The corrosion and fracture morphology characteristics of the alternate test were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the composition of corrosion products was examined by the energy dispersion spectrum (EDS). The prediction model of fatigue crack growth rate considering the alternating hysteresis effect of corrosion and fatigue based on the Paris formula was established, and the parameters and precision of the model were calculated and verified. The results show that the model has certain engineering application value.

Experiment of alternate action of corrosion and fatigue on 7B04 aluminum alloy was carried out in this paper and fatigue life was obtained. One of the characteristics about fatigue life is that it is not always decreasing with the increasing of corrosion time. The surface splits caused by the corrosion of intruding and extruding slip steps on the surface and decreasing of stress concentration around corrosion pits were the main reasons. Single side allowance factorkwas proposed to calculate reliability fatigue life with both reliability and confidence. Reliability, confidence, and specimen number had affection on the value ofk. The reliability influences more greatly the reliability fatigue life compared to the confidence. The safe fatigue life is smaller than median life and it was safe to administrate aircraft life using safe fatigue life.