Corrosion behavior of aluminium alloys 2024 and 7075 under simulated marine environment

This study was designed to determine the corrosion rate behaviour of two aluminium materials, alloys 2024 and 7075, exposed to a simulated marine environment by means of a 2kfactorial design method. The most important factors influencing the corrosion rate were NaCl concentration, temperature, and exposure time. Generic linear modeling was employed to evaluate the impact of those factors. A statistical test of significance was conducted to determine whether changes in corrosion rates were caused by specific factors. A confidence interval for the effects was established, along with the significance of different interactions for each alloy. In this work, potentiodynamic polarization measurements were used to investigate corrosion potential (Ecorr), corrosion current density (Icorr), and corrosion rate. The morphology and chemical composition of the immersed samples were analyzed using scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The experimental findings indicate that the proposed statistical models have the potential of accurately representing the performance indicators within the ranges of the factors being examined. The process described will help developing an appropriate approach to future experiments. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.