Corrosion Behavior of AA6012 Aluminum Alloy Processed by ECAP and Cryogenic Treatment

Abstract

In this work, the corrosion behavior of an AA6012 aluminum alloy, submitted to a T6 strengthening treatment (solubilization and aging), and later to a severe plastic deformation, through equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) was studied. Some of these samples were submitted to a cryogenic treatment before the ECAP process. The analysis of corrosion behavior of the AA6012 samples was carried out at room temperature by means of electrochemical characterization in 0.1 M Cl− deaerated and aerated solution at pH 2. For this purpose, Tafel plots and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy tests were performed. The evolution of the microstructure was studied by means of SEM and TEM observations. The experimental results show that the cryogenic treatment does not influence the corrosion behavior of the studied alloy submitted to T6 treatment. Moreover, it was found that the ECAP technique does not induce a marked deterioration of the analyzed samples in terms of corrosion resistance.