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The corrosion behaviour of aluminium alloy B206 in seawater

University of British Columbia

Aluminium alloy B206 is one of the strongest and toughest alloys in the cast aluminium family. Although it is light and has excellent low cycle fatigue strength, AA B206 has been known to perform adversely due to its poor corrosion resistance. Thus corrosion has been identified as one of the major issues that jeopardizes the long-term use and performance of B206. The corrosion behaviour of B206 in seawater is studied through immersion testing and electrochemical techniques such as Potentiodynmaic Polarization, Potentiostatic Polarization, Cyclic Potentiodynmic Polarization and Linear Sweep Thermmametry in two different solutions, namely natural seawater and simulated seawater, at various temperatures. Techniques like Optical Microscopy, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy have been used to investigate the microstructure and surface morphology before and after the electrochemical tests. Heat treatment has been performed on the as-received samples using RRA and T7 heat treatment techniques to compare the corrosion behaviour of the former with the latter using electrochemical techniques and image analysis. Lastly, hardness tests have been performed on various heat treated and as-cast samples to establish a comparison in mechanical properties. This study shows that the extent of B206 corrosion depends on the oxidizing nature of the seawater environment i.e. low or high redox potential rather than on the temperature of the seawater. Natural seawater is more aggressive than simulated seawater. Also, heat treatment improved the corrosion resistance as compared to as-cast B206 which was determined by the values of corrosion current density and surface analysis. Furthermore, heat treatment has led to better mechanical properties as determined by hardness tests.

Text

2016-01-19

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/56551

Materials Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/