Aluminium alloys exposed to borderline solutions - A methodology to evaluate the susceptibility to corrosion fatigue with respect to corrosive de-icers

In addition to high mechanical loads certain components for the automotive industry are exposed to corrosive environments, especially during winter, when corrosion promoting de-icers are essential to sustain road traffic. The underlying research work contributes to the evaluation of the corrosion fatigue performance of aluminium alloys relevant for automotive application generally, while the present text focuses on wrought alloys. Aluminium alloys are of special interest because of the opportunity to reduce expenses for an additional corrosion protection and to support lightweight construction of vehicles. Components exposed to simultaneous mechanical and corrosive service loads as well as corrosion tests of different scale level (immersion and cabinet testing, long term outdoor exposure of components, usage on test carriers) were analysed to evaluate typical forms of corrosion. Based upon the prevailing damaging mechanism of material conditions with known differences i n susceptibility to specific forms of corrosion, like intergranular corrosion or pitting, methods were derived to evolve service relevant types of corrosion during laboratory tests.