TITLE:
Impact of Corrosive Liquid on Trivalent Chromium over Aluminium Alloys
AUTHORS:
Kalaivanan Thirupathi, Pál Bárczy, Béla Márton Somosvári
KEYWORDS:
Trivalent Chromium, Chromate Conversion Coating, ASTM B117, Neutral Salt Spray Test
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Surface Engineered Materials and Advanced Technology,
Vol.7 No.3,
July
4,
2017
ABSTRACT: Considering aviation and space sectors, aluminium alloys are commonly used due to its excellent mechanical and physical properties. Though satellite hard-ware is confined to controlled environment, it requires anticorrosive treatment over metal substrate followed by a systematic coating scheme. The trivalent chromium coating was deposited over three aluminium alloys namely AA6063, AA7075 and AA6082. The variation in corrosion resistance property of trivalent chromium over each aluminium alloy has been studied in detail. The Neutral Salt Spray (NSS) test result shows that trivalent chromium coating over AA7075 alloy is affected by pitting corrosion compared to other two alloys. In addition to that, NSS test also proves that thickness of the layer does not have any influence corrosion resistance property of trivalent chromium coating. Furthermore, ions in trivalent chromium coating was identified using Secondary Neutral Mass Spectroscopy (SNMS) and degradation of coating in a corrosive liquid studied using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) instrument to understand mechanism of corrosion. The results indicated that both coating and substrate is involved in corrosion process. The number of elements dissolved in to salt solution reveals the weak ionic bonding of coating towards substrates. In comparison, AA7075 alloy has weaker bonding than AA6082 and AA6063 series. The alloying elements such as zinc and copper are removed from substrate by corrosive solution.