Stress corrosion behavior of friction stir welding joint of 7N01 aluminum alloy

The friction stir welding joint of 7N01 aluminum alloy has strong stress corrosion sensitivity due to the inhomogeneity of microstructure. In this paper, the stress corrosion behavior of 14 mm thick plate 7N01-T4 welding joint and base metal was investigated by means of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, slow strain rate tensile test and electron back scattered diffraction. The results show that the charge transfer resistance of the welding joint is obviously lower than that of the base metal. The lowest impedance at the joint is 698 Ucm2, but the lowest impedance is 1082 Ucm2 at the base metal.The lowest Rct value at the weld is only 64.5% of the base metal. The thermal-mechanical affected zone on the rear side is the worst area of the resistance to stress corrosion. There are more deformed grains and larger Schmidt factor close to 0.5 in this area, and the different grain orientation can easily lead to the concentration of internal tensile stress and the formation of crack propagation. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

The research found that the charge transfer resistance in the 7N01 aluminum alloy welding joint is significantly lower than that of the base metal, with the worst resistance to stress corrosion in the thermal-mechanical affected zone, which can easily lead to the concentration of internal tensile stress and the formation of crack propagation.