Indentation creep-fatigue test on aluminum alloy 2A12

Generally, the creep-fatigue behavior of materials is obtained by tensile/compression tests. In the present study, we explore the possibility of investigating the creep-fatigue behavior of aluminum alloy 2A12 at 200 °C by using indentation creep-fatigue test with a flat cylindrical indenter. The experimental results show that the evolution of indentation depth with the number of cycles experiences two stages: a short transient stage and then a steady state with an approximate constant indentation depth propagation rate. The micro-observations on craters undergoing creep-fatigue and pure creep loadings indicate that the fatigue loading accelerates the evolution of damage and leads to the nucleation of cracks around the crater. These findings are useful to probe the creep-fatigue properties of materials with the indentation test.