INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECT of Cu ADDED TO CORROSION PROPERTIES OF ALUMIUM ALLOY

Recep ÇATAR¹ , EMIN USLU² , MURAT ÇOLAK³

Aluminum casting alloys have many advantageous primarly high weight/strength ratio such as high corrosion resistant, high thermal conductivity, ductility and good machinability. Therefore, the alloys have been used in many industrial fields, and especially the alloys usage in the automotive industry have been inreasing with each passing day. However, some ceratin properties, depending on the place of usage, are expected to increase with certain aspects of various alloying additions in the alloy. The study with reagard to this aspect is carrying on in line with the growing needs and quality expectations. Although mechanical properties of Al alloys are increased by adding copper Cu, the corrosion resistance drops. In this study, Al-Cu alloys were produced by adding different proportions of Cu (%2-%6-%8) to the commercial purity (99.8% Al) aluminum alloys with sand mold casting method. The spectrometer was used to determine the chemical composition, density measurements, microstructure, and electrochemical behavior, by using SEM analysis, was investigated. The corrosion properties of aluminum alloys, after addition of Cu, were investigated by potentiodynamic polarization method in 3.5% NaCl solution. As a result of experiments, it was found that copper reduces the corrosion resistance of Al alloy,when addition of Cu is increased.

Keywords
Al-Cu Alloys, Corrosion, Casting, Alloying, Corrossion,