Improved Corrosion Performance of Aerospace Aluminum Products

Legacy aerospace products such as 7075-T6 and 2024-T3 exhibited poor corrosion performance. Therefore these products were protected, for example by alclading, to improve their durability. Improvements in corrosion performance have taken place over the years with the introduction of new alloys and tempers. This paper will review the corrosion characteristics of legacy alloys and products. The understanding that lead to aerospace products with improved corrosion performance will be discussed. Finally the corrosion behavior of the latest generation of aluminum aerospace products will be presented and discussed. It is concluded that the latest generation of aluminum based products exhibits corrosion resistance vastly superior to that of the legacy materials. Results of the corrosion behavior of new aerospace products as Titanium substitutes will be discussed.