Corrosion behaviour of Al 1050 severely deformed by rotary swaging

• UFG of Al 1050 led to marked improvement of the corrosion resistance.
• UFG resulted in more grain boundaries that enhance the formation of a stable passive film.
• Corroded samples exhibited shallow rectangular pits.
• UFG material revealed lower weight loss compared to as-received material.

In this study, corrosion behaviour of ultrafine-grained (UFG) commercial pure aluminium Al 1050 processed by rotary swaging (RS) was examined using potentiodynamic polarization and weight loss immersion test in 3.5% NaCl solution. Corrosion behaviour of UFG Al 1050 was compared with that of coarse grained (CG) as-received material. The results showed that ultrafine grain refinement by RS led to marked improvement of the corrosion resistance. The improvement in corrosion resistance is profited from the denser and stable passive film due to more grain boundaries, larger fraction of non-equilibrium grain boundaries and residual stress of the UFG pure aluminium. The weight loss tests revealed low corrosion rate values of RS material compared to CG as-received material. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis revealed a higher number of rectangular shallow pits (more close to patches of general dissolution); larger pits size was observed in the as-received compared to RS materials.