Effects of Zr additions and process annealing on mechanical and corrosion properties of AA5383 Al-Mg alloys

The study investigates how Zr additions and process annealing affect mechanical and corrosion properties of AA5083 Al-Mg alloys by microstructural examination, tensile strength, hardness testing and ASTM G67 nitric acid mass loss test. In the present work, process annealing temperatures were set to 220 degrees C and 250 degrees C. The results show that the hardness and tensile properties of Zr-containing cold rolled alloy were superior to that of Zr-free cold rolled alloy before and after process annealing treatment and sensitization heat treatment. Unfortunately, adding Zr to AA5383 alloy significantly degraded the corrosion resistance of the Zr-containing cold rolled alloy annealed at 220 degrees C. For improving corrosion resistance of Zr-containing alloy, annealing temperature could be increased to 250 degrees C to avoid a marked drop in the corrosion resistance.