Journal of Alloys and Compounds 648 (2015) 912e918

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Journal of Alloys and Compounds

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jalcom

Combining equal-channel angular pressing and heat treatment to

obtain enhanced corrosion resistance in 6061 aluminum alloy
Omid Nejadsey a, *, Ali Shokuhfar a, Amirreza Dabiri b, Amin Azimi a
a
Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Research Center, Department of Mechanical Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology,
Tehran 19395-1999, Iran
b
Abadan Faculty of Petroleum Engineering, Petroleum University of Technology, Abadan, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The corrosion behavior of 6061 aluminum alloy processed by heat treatment and equal-channel angular
Received 24 March 2015 pressing (ECAP) is investigated. Current transient, potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical
Received in revised form impedance spectroscopy are used to assess the corrosion resistance of 6061 aluminum alloy in different
22 May 2015
processing conditions. The results conrm that the peak-aged sample after two ECAP passes and
Accepted 27 May 2015
Available online 10 June 2015
annealed sample after four ECAP passes are the most resistant samples against corrosion. Using ECAP
leads to substantial increase in the dislocation density, re-distribution of precipitates, crystallite
renement, alteration of the surface area of the cathodic sites, and increase in the volume fraction of
Keywords:
Corrosion
grain boundaries that affects corrosion resistance. Assessment of the corroded surfaces of the materials
Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy shows that some coarse-grains are corroded selectively in the annealed sample leading to formation of
Metals and alloys deep and large pits on the sample surface. However, after ECAP, shallow and uniform corroded surface is
Potentiodynamic polarization observed that is in agreement with the corrosion diagrams.
Scanning electron microscopy 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Transmission electron microscopy

1. Introduction different materials after SPD is also investigated. Darmiani et al.

One of the main characteristics of aluminum alloys is excellent
corrosion resistance that makes them suitable to be widely used in
automotive, aerospace, and marine industry. A wide range of heat
treatments are also available for aluminum alloys that make it
possible to tailor their properties to t specic applications. In
addition, development of severe plastic deformation (SPD)
methods to produce nanostructured (NS) and ultrane-grained
(UFG) materials makes it possible to control the microstructure
and properties of heat treatable aluminum alloys. ECAP is one of the
most used SPD processes that induces simple shear deformation to
the samples without any cross-sectional change and due to the
constancy of the cross-sectional area of the billet, the process is
repeatable in further passes [1,2].
Recently, researchers have widely investigated the strength,
toughness, wear, and fatigue properties of the samples processed
by SPD methods [3e9]. More recently, the corrosion resistance of
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: o.nejadsey@sina.kntu.ac.ir, o.nejadsey@gmail.com
(O. Nejadsey), Shokuhfar@kntu.ac.ir (A. Shokuhfar).
[10] studied the corrosion behavior of AleSiC nano-composite,
produced by accumulative roll bonding (ARB). They showed that
increasing the ARB cycles led to a decrease in the number of pits
and an increase in the pitting corrosion resistance. Nie et al. [11]
investigated the corrosion behavior of commercial purity tita-
nium processed by high-pressure torsion (HPT). They stated that
there is a complicated relation between grain renement and
corrosion resistance, due to contradictory effects of inhomoge-
neous microstructure and grain size reduction. Zheng et al. [12]
investigated the effects of microstructural changes during ECAP
on the corrosion behavior of 304 stainless steel. They reported that
the corrosion resistance of the samples improved after ECAP due to
increase in the stability of the passive lm on 304 stainless steel
though the thickness and composition of the passive lms on the
as-received and 8-pass samples were very similar. Miyamoto et al.
[13] studied the corrosion behavior of copper with and without
processing by ECAP in a modied Livingstone etchant. Their study
revealed that UFG copper exhibited remarkably lower corrosion
current in comparison with that in the coarse-grained (CG) coun-
terpart. Jiang et al. [14] reported the enhanced corrosion resistance
of hypereutectic AleSi alloy subjected to ECAP. They found that in
UFG structure, the easier formation of an oxide layer with an

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2015.05.177
0925-8388/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 O. Nejadsey et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 648 (2015) 912e918
improved adhesion force and protection efcacy improved the
corrosion behavior.
Several other investigations have been performed to investigate
the inuence of SPD on the corrosion behavior of different mate-
rials. Akiyama et al. [15] reported improvement of corrosion
resistance of the AleNi alloy by ECAP, Hosseini et al. [16] investi-
gated the effects of grain size and texture on the corrosion behavior
of commercial purity titanium processed by ECAP, and Vra tna et al.
[17] reported enhanced corrosion resistance in AZ31 magnesium
alloy processed by ECAP. In addition, Shi et al. [18] studied the effect
of Sc and Zr addition on the corrosion behavior of AleZneMgeCu
alloys, Canakci et al. [19] assessed the inuence of milling time in
mechanical alloying on the formation of a protective coating layer,
and Hockauf et al. [20] stated that the solid-solution heat treated
6082 aluminum alloy combined with post-ECAP aging showed
excellent corrosion resistance.
In this study, corrosion behavior of 6061 aluminum alloy pro-
cessed by a combination of heat treatment and ECAP is investigated
to reveal the simultaneous effects of grain renement and heat
treatment on corrosion resistance. In order to compare the results,
the tests were performed in four processing conditions and the
inuence of heat treatment, severe plastic deformation, and a
combination of heat treatment and severe plastic deformation are
discussed. The results of different corrosion tests on the annealed
material were used as the reference case. The aim is to address the
individual and combined effects of heat treatment and ECAP on
corrosion resistance of 6061 aluminum alloy. The information ob-
tained from these analyses can be used to address failure reasons
due to corrosion and propose an appropriate method for materials
processing to promote corrosion resistance.
2. Experimental procedure
Four groups of cylindrical billets with a diameter of 10 mm and a
length of 60 mm were machined from an ingot of aluminum alloy
6061. The composition of this alloy is presented in Table 1. All billets
were initially annealed in 686 K for ve hours. The billets of rst
group, named as group A, were kept in the annealed condition (O
temper). The billets of the second group, named as group B, were
solution heat treated and articially aged to achieve the T6 temper.
Solution heat treatment was performed by heating the billets to the
super-saturated condition at around 800 K for 30 min followed by
rapid quenching in cold water. Articial aging was also performed
at 433 K for 18 h. Third group contained the billets of O temper,
which were pressed using an ECAP die by route C up to four passes.
(Group C). The last group contained the billets in T6 condition that
were ECA pressed up to two passes using route C. A split die with an
internal angle of 90
and an arc of curvature of 20
was imple-
mented to conduct ECAP at room temperature. MOS2 was used as
lubricant in order to reduce friction [21]. Punch speed was chosen
to be 5 mms-1.
Prior to corrosion tests, small disks were prepared from the
center of each billet and were polished using SiC papers and pol-
ishing powders. Electrochemical measurement was performed at
room temperature for each specimen in a solution containing 3.5%
NaCl. A reference electrode of Ag/AgCl was used for electrochemical
impedance spectroscopy (EIS) using an auxiliary electrode of plat-
inum. The frequency range was from 105 to 102 Hz using
Table 1
Composition of the Al6061 Alloy in weight percentage.
Al Mg Si Fe Cu
Base 0.807 0.669 0.627 0.23
913
sinusoidal AC voltage of 10 mV amplitude. Subsequently, poten-
tiodynamic polarization was carried out in the range of 1.2
to 0.2 V at a scan rate of 0.25 mVs1. The analysis of current
transients was another method used to assess the mechanisms of
localized corrosion at a constant voltage, the variation of current
density was recorded during 1200s. This test was used to analyze
pit initiation and re-passivation processes in different samples. All
tests were repeated at least three times in order to maintain a high
statistical accuracy.
XRD analysis was performed using Cu Ka radiation
(l 0.15406 nm) at a voltage and electrical current of 40 kV and
30 mA, respectively. The XRD patterns were recorded in the 2q
range of 0e100
. Corroded surfaces were investigated using scan-
ning electron microscopy (SEM) to observe the microscopic fea-
tures of corrosion in each case. Optical microscopy (OM) and high-
resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) were also
used in order to obtain the microstructure of the processed mate-
rials before and after ECAP.
3. Results
3.1. Current transient test results
Fig. 1 shows the graphs of the current density versus immersion
time for the samples of four groups where the magnitude of the
voltage remained constant. The variation of electrode current with
immersion time is depicted to investigate the pit initiation and
repassivation processes. In all samples, the current magnitude is
increased during the initial stages of immersion. However, after
about 200s, the current values remain almost stable with very little
uctuation. It is shown that the highest current is obtained for
annealed sample showing the lowest pitting corrosion resistance
for this sample. After processing the annealed sample by ECAP, the
current values are decreased showing improved pitting corrosion
resistance. The heat-treated sample also shows an improved pitting
corrosion resistance compared to the annealed sample. However,
one ECAP pass on the annealed specimen seems to be more effec-
tive in improving the pitting corrosion resistance than peak aging
(T6 heat treatment). It is also shown that the pitting corrosion
resistance for both annealed and peak-aged samples after two ECAP
passes is very similar and the annealed specimen after four ECAP
passes is the most resistant sample against pitting corrosion.
Nevertheless, the formation of the protective layer in the peak-aged
sample after two ECAP passes is immediate after immersion, while
the oxide layer in the annealed sample after four ECAP passes needs
more time to be formed.
Careful inspection of these curves conrms that after 200s, there
is gradual increase in the current value for the annealed and peak-
Mn
0.12
Fig. 1. Current density versus immersion time at a constant voltage.
914 O. Nejadsey et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 648 (2015) 912e918
aged samples. However, for the ECA pressed samples the current
becomes more stable during higher immersion times. This phe-
nomenon suggests that the annealed and heat-treated samples
need more immersing time to form a protective passive lm, which
indicates that pitting occurs gradually. This observation can be
related to the quick dissolution of the oxide lm in the aggressive
solution. However, the current density remains almost constant in
the samples processed by ECAP. Although practical information can
be obtained from these curves, other electrochemical tests are still
needed to accurately judge the corrosion resistance of different
samples.
3.2. Potentiodynamic polarization
Determining corrosion rate and evaluation of corrosion prop-
erties is usually performed by potentiodynamic polarization test.
Fig. 2 illustrates the polarization curves for the samples of each
group. Corrosion current and potential extracted from potentio-
dynamic polarization diagrams is also illustrated in Fig. 3. It is
shown that the corrosion current of the annealed specimen after
ECAP is more than that of the unprocessed specimen. A reverse
trend is observed for the peak-aged sample before and after ECAP.
Complex passive corrosion behavior in NaCl solution is observed in
both annealed and peak-aged samples. The corrosion current
density and corrosion potential are evaluated using the Tafel slope
tting from the polarization curves and the corrosion rates are
included in Table 2 and Fig. 3. For the annealed sample, the
corrosion rate is increased after processing by ECAP. In addition,
heat treatment leads to increase in the corrosion rate. However,
these modications are very narrow in the polarization curves and
actually preceding cathodic reaction on the sample surface may
compromise the accuracy of the obtained results [11]. Therefore, it
is suggested to use the EIS technique, which is more sensitive in
characterizing the corrosion behavior of the materials of different
groups accurately.
3.3. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy
Although polarization curves have been used widely for corro-
sion analysis, preceding cathodic reaction on the sample surface
may compromise the accuracy of the obtained results. Therefore, it
is better to use EIS technique to characterize the electrochemical
interface between electrodes and electrolytes, which is more sen-
sitive. Fig. 4 shows representative Nyquist plots obtained for
different samples in 3.5% NaCl solution. The results show that,
increasing the number ECAP passes leads to increase in the corro-
sion resistance. The annealed sample has the lowest resistance
Fig. 2. Potentiodynamic polarization curves for different samples.
Fig. 3. Corrosion current and potential extracted from potentiodynamic polarization
diagrams.
against corrosion. Peak aging leads to a gradual improvement in the
corrosion resistance of aluminum alloy. However, one ECAP pass is
more effective in improvement of the corrosion resistance than
peak aging. These observations accompany the obtained results in
the current transients. It is notable that the corrosion resistance of
both annealed and peak-aged specimens increases when the
number of passes are increased. However, the peak-aged sample
obtains exceptional corrosion resistance after two ECAP passes.
This observation could be directly related to the microstructural
evolution, distribution, size and volume fraction of the precipitates
[20].
Fig. 5 shows X-Ray diffraction (XRD) patterns for the samples of
four groups. The constituting phases and the relative amount of
these phases could be distinguished by comparing the ratio of the
intensities. Therefore, it is notable that the relative amount of AlFeSi
phase increases after heat treatment. This observation conrms the
increase in corrosion resistance after heat treatment compared
with that of the annealed sample. As expected, processing by ECAP
reduces the size of precipitations and leads to a uniform distribu-
tion of the second phase particles [22,23]. The induced strain, grain
renement mechanism and induction of high amount of disloca-
tion density are almost identical in both annealed and peak-aged
samples after ECAP. The peak broadening in all cases shows that
the average crystallite size of the soft and hard phases decreases
after two ECAP passes. However, signicant difference between the
corrosion behavior of annealed and peak-aged samples after two
ECAP passes may arise from the presence of the ne second phase
particles with a uniform distribution in the aluminum matrix. It is
also notable the inuence of the presence of ne second phase
particles and their uniform distribution is more effective than
repeating ECAP and gradual conversion of low angle grain bound-
aries to high angle grain boundaries. In other words, the corrosion
resistance of the peak-aged sample after two ECAP passes is even
higher than that of the annealed sample after four ECAP passes.
3.4. Microstructure and corroded surface
In the previous sections, the results of different corrosion tests
were presented. This section aims to clearly represent the under-
lying mechanisms in the corrosion. Fig. 6 illustrates the micro-
structure of the annealed specimen before and after ECAP. As
shown in this gure, the average grain size is reduced from 20 to
30 mm to below 500 nm after only two ECAP passes. In addition to
that, a high number of dislocations and sub-grain boundaries that
appear as dark lines in Fig. 6b are easily detectable. A high dislo-
cation density together with rened grains is the main reason that
improves corrosion resistance of the sample. In addition, Fig. 5
showed the constitutive phases and their relative amount before
 O. Nejadsey et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 648 (2015) 912e918 915

Table 2
Data extracted from potentiodynamic polarization diagrams.

Sample Ecorr/V Icorr/A cm2 ba/V dec1 bc/V dec1 Rp/ohm Vcorr/mm y1

Anneal 0.623 8.588  107 0.688 0.014 3.284  103 1.009  102
Anneal 2Passes 0.696 3.133  106 0.278 0.014 3.433  102 3.680  102
Anneal 4Passes 0.680 6.613  106 0.778 0.015 4.989  102 7.767  102
Peak age 0.707 3.446  106 0.428 0.021 7.312  102 4.048  102
Peak age 2Passes 0.728 3.723  107 0.166 0.018 2.264  103 4.384  103

and after precipitation hardening and ECAP. Fig. 7 depicts the

corroded surfaces of the samples of each group to show how the
microstructural features affect the pitting on the samples during
the test.
For the annealed sample (Fig. 7a), there are a lot of local envi-
ronmental attacks. Large and deep pits are easily detectable in this
case. After peak aging, these local environmental attacks reduce,
but the size and depth of the pits remain relatively large (Fig. 7b).
Most of the sample surface remained intact, while there are se-
lective corrosion areas on the surface. Both annealed and peak-aged
sample after two ECAP passes show relatively small pits as shown
in Fig. 7c and d. Nevertheless, they are well-distributed in the peak-
aged sample. This might have originated from the uniform distri-
bution of the second phase particles. Finally, the annealed sample
after four ECAP passes represents shallow and uniformly corroded
surface (Fig. 7e).
Fig. 4. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy diagrams for different samples. Selective corrosion of grains can be attributed to the differences
in the crystallographic orientations of specic grains. When some
coarse-grains are corroded selectively, deep and large pits are
formed on the sample surface. That is why in the annealed sample
deeper and larger pits are detectable than the other samples. A
closer inspection of the pits in Fig. 8 conrms the presence of
abundant and deeper corrosion pits on the corroded surface of the
annealed sample in which the grain size is more than 40 times
bigger than that of the annealed sample after two ECAP passes.
Fig. 9 shows the EDS analysis of point A and B shown in Fig. 7. As
shown in this gure, the concentration of Na and Cl around the pit
is detectable. The Mg element is totally solved on point B. However,
the formation of oxide layer on point B protects the surface and the
major alloying elements are retained.

4. Discussion

The graphs of the current densities versus immersion time for

the samples of four groups in a constant voltage are shown in Fig. 1.
These curves showed that there was gradual increase in the current
value for the annealed and peak-aged sample. Aluminum alloys
Fig. 5. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns.
exhibit relatively good corrosion resistance due to spontaneous
formation of an oxide lm in an atmospheric environment.

Fig. 6. The microstructure of (a) annealed specimen and (b) annealed specimen after two ECAP passes using route C.
916 O. Nejadsey et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 648 (2015) 912e918

Fig. 7. Corroded surfaces of (a) annealed specimen, (b) peak-aged sample, (c) annealed specimen after two ECAP passes using route C, (d) peak-aged sample after two ECAP passes
using route C, and (e) annealed specimen after four ECAP passes using route C.

Fig. 8. Three dimensional images from the corroded surfaces of (a) annealed specimen, 1500, and (b) annealed specimen after two ECAP passes, 1500X (To view this image
correctly, the reader is recommended to refer to the web version of the article and to wear a passive 3-D red-cyan glasses.).

However, they are prone to pitting corrosion mainly in chloride-
rich solutions in which the oxide lm is attacked by chloride ions.
For both annealed and peak-aged samples some immersing time is
needed to form a protective passive lm once pitting occurs grad-
ually. Quick dissolution of the oxide lm in the aggressive solution
leads to gradual increase in current value. However, for the ECA
pressed samples the current becomes more stable in the initial
immersion times as it was observed previously [12]. The relative
dissolution or passivation of a surface can be linked to the total
length of the grain boundary. As shown by Orlov et al. [24], a change
 O. Nejadsey et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 648 (2015) 912e918
Fig. 9. EDS analysis of points A and B shown in Fig. 7.
in grain boundary length can either increase or decrease the
corrosion rate, which depends on specic material/environment
combinations. In their potentiodynamic polarization study on Mg
alloy ZK60, icorr appeared to decrease as the grain size was reduced.
Additionally, corrosion behavior could not be exclusively attributed
to the grain size while ignoring solute population throughout the
microstructure [24]. Nevertheless, in the absence of precipitates in
high-purity materials, the grain boundaries will play the key role in
controlling the corrosion behavior. Such an investigation was one of
the main challenges addressed in this study. X-ray diffraction pat-
terns shown in Fig. 5, showed that the relative amount of second
phase particles in the annealed sample was very low and ECAP led
to decreasing corrosion rate. However, the peak-aged sample, in
which the relative amount of second phase particles was higher
than that of the annealed sample, showed improved corrosion
resistance after ECAP. Similar observation was reported for the
corrosion resistance of two Mg alloys [25]. The corrosion resistance
of AE21 alloy decreased after ECAP while the corrosion resistance of
AE42 alloy increased. As the grain size of both alloys after ECAP was
nearly the same, the variation in the corrosion resistance of these
alloys originated from variation of the alloying elements and the
uniform spatial distribution of the alloying elements in AE42 led to
enhanced corrosion resistance.
As indicated, peak-aged sample after ECAP with ne dispersion
of second phase particles showed improved corrosion resistance.
Jiang et al. [14] observed such a phenomenon for cast Al-26 wt% Si
alloy. The improved corrosion resistance was related to grain
renement that provided more nucleation sites to form denser and
thicker natural oxide lm resulting in higher impermeability to
aggressive media [14]. Macroscopic assessments also showed that
the samples were generally eroded with coincident pitting corro-
sion due to the presence of large secondary phases that created
917
local galvanic cells. Additionally, abundant and deeper corrosion
pits on the corroded surface of the as-cast sample were replaced by
shallow corrosion grooves. The main reason was the uniform dis-
tribution of ne secondary-phase Si particles on the UFG Al matrix
that weakened the susceptibility to pitting corrosion, while it
inhibited general microgalvanic reactions as observed in this study.
Fig. 7 clearly showed that how the precipitation hardening as well
as the size and distribution of precipitates can alter the corrosion
mechanisms. Such an observation was also reported by Akiyama
et al. [15] who performed ECAP on Al-5 wt% Cu alloy and stated that
the size and the total area of Al2Cu particles reduced with the
repetition of ECAP passes. The renement of Al2Cu particles, which
acted as cathode and the Cu-depleted zone surrounding Al2Cu
particles where pitting preferentially took place had been dimin-
ished. These changes in microstructure of the processed samples
seemed to be responsible for improvement in the pitting resistance
after ECAP. The dissolution of Al8Fe2Si inclusions that were within
grain boundaries together with the existing grain boundaries were
also introduced as a main reason for changing the morphology of
pitting corrosion from low-density deep pits to high-density
shallow pits which led to transition from inter-granular corrosion
to pitting corrosion [26].
In addition to that, comparing Fig. 7c, d and e indicated that the
microstructural homogeneity achieved after repeating the ECAP
process up to four passes was also benecial in achieving enhanced
corrosion resistance, because it can reduce the localized corrosion
in some grains. In fact, the homogeneity of corrosive damages
seems to be the main advantages of ultrane-grained materials in
comparison with conventional polycrystals, which are susceptible
to highly localized corrosion [27]. Figs. 7 and 8 clearly showed the
differences between the highly localized corrosion and shallow pits
on the surface of annealed sample before and after ECAP,
respectively.
The results of potentiodynamic polarization test shown in Figs. 2
and 3, and specically the corrosion volume calculated in Table 2
suggested that the predictions of this test in different processing
conditions vary slightly. In other words, the variation of corrosion
rate obtained for annealed, peak-aged, and annealed sample after
ECAP is very narrow, which also can be affected by experimental
errors and preceding cathodic reaction on the sample surface [16].
The only conclusion that can be made condently is improvement
of the corrosion resistance of peak-aged sample after two ECAP
passes, because the corrosion rate obtained for this specimen is
about one tenth of the corrosion rate obtained for the rest of the
samples.
In addition, it seems that ECAP deteriorates the corrosion
resistance of annealed sample in this test. These differences are
usually explained considering various and counteracting effects of
ECAP on different samples. The processing by ECAP leads to sub-
stantial increase in the dislocation density, re-distribution of pre-
cipitates, crystallite renement, alteration of the surface area of the
cathodic sites, and increase in the volume fraction of grain
boundaries. Each of these microstructural changes modies the
cathodic sites prone to corrosion, formation of passive lm, and in
general, the corrosion behavior of the samples [26]. Nevertheless, it
is suggested that results of the EIS technique be used, being a
sensitive method in the investigation of the corrosion behavior.
The results of the EIS tests on the samples of four groups shown
in Fig. 4 exhibit a little bit difference with the data obtained in
polarization curves. While potentiodynamic polarization suggested
that the corrosion resistance of the annealed sample after ECAP
reduced, the EIS technique indicated that the corrosion resistance
of that sample is improved similar to the current transient test
results. As mentioned, preceding cathodic reaction on the sample
surface may compromise the accuracy of the obtained results.
918 O. Nejadsey et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 648 (2015) 912e918
Therefore, the results of the EIS technique that is more sensitive
could be reliable in terms of corrosion resistance. Nevertheless, all
corrosion tests performed in this study imply that the most resis-
tant sample against corrosion is the peak-aged sample after two
passes of ECAP.
It should be noted that the material on which ECAP is applied is
also important to assess the corrosion behavior. For instance, the
corrosion behavior of copper does not qualitatively change after
ECAP [27]. However, the microstructural evolution during severe
plastic deformation may lead to enhanced stability and homoge-
neity of coating [28,29]. The state of grain boundary, which de-
pends on the pre and post ECAP heat treatment, is also another
important factor. Therefore, all these complicated cases needs to be
investigated in detail to clearly understand the corrosion behavior
of the materials processed by a combination of severe plastic
deformation and heat treatment.
5. Conclusions
In this study, the corrosion behavior of 6061 aluminum alloy
processed by a combination of heat treatment and ECAP was
investigated. Current transient, potentiodynamic polarization, and
EIS tests were used to reveal the effects of processing history and
different microstructural backgrounds on the corrosion resistance
of aluminum alloy. The following conclusions were made as the
main results of this investigation:
The steady state anodic current density that served as a measure
of the average dissolution rate at a certain potential was reduced
after ECAP for both annealed and peak-aged samples. In addition,
the steady state anodic current density for peak-aged sample was
lower than that of the annealed specimen. These observations were
related to the increase in the total length of the grain boundaries by
which the formation of passive layer with an improved adhesion
force and protection efcacy led to improved corrosion resistance.
Potentiodynamic polarization tests showed that for annealed
samples, the corrosion rate increased after processing by ECAP. In
addition, heat treatment led to an increase in the corrosion rate. At
the same time, peak-aged samples after two ECAP passes showed
enhanced corrosion resistance. As the differences were very narrow
in this test, they could be affected by preceding cathodic reaction or
experimental/setup errors.
Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) showed that the
corrosion resistance of both annealed and peak-aged specimens
increased when the number of ECAP passes increased. The results
that were obtained conrmed that the peak-aged sample after two
ECAP passes was the most resistant sample against corrosion.
Using ECAP led to substantial increase in the dislocation density,
re-distribution of precipitates, crystallite renement, alteration of
the surface area of the cathodic sites, and increase in the volume
fraction of grain boundaries. Each of these microstructural changes
modied the cathodic sites prone to corrosion, formation of passive
lm, and in general, the corrosion behavior of the samples.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Iran Nanotechnology Initiative
Council (INIC) Tehran, Iran, for the nancial support of this work
under the grant numbers of 38288 and 59117.
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