Corrosion behaviour of brazing material AA4343

This paper is part of a work devoted to corrosion of brazed AA4343/AA3003/AA4343 materials on water side of automotive heater cores. The microstructure of the superficial resolidified AA4343 brazing material has been previously characterised [1] and [2]. It is composed of large (Al) grains separated by valleys containing multiphase deposits of (Al), Si and α-Al(Mn,Fe)Si. The present study focuses on its electrochemical behaviours in neutral water–ethylene glycol mixtures at different temperatures with and without chloride ions. Three types of behaviour are revealed: (i) passivation, (ii) defective passivation and (iii) pitting corrosion at the corrosion potential. The defective passivation is investigated in greater depth. The results show that Si needles do not participate in the corrosion progress whereas the α-Al(Mn,Fe)Si particles are preferential sites for corrosion attacks. α-Al(Mn,Fe)Si particle/matrix interactions are responsible of the defective passivation at valleys level where the α-Al(Mn,Fe)Si phase particles are mainly concentrated. Increasing the temperature enhances this reactivity whereas addition of ethylene glycol decreases it and favours a transition from defective passivation to passivation for ethylene glycol content higher than 55%.