Effects of Zr additions and process annealing on mechanical and corrosion properties of AA5383 Al–Mg alloys

The study investigates how Zr additions and process annealing affect mechanical and corrosion properties of AA5083 Al–Mg alloys by microstructural examination, tensile strength, hardness testing and ASTM G67 nitric acid mass loss test. In the present work, process annealing temperatures were set to 220 ^◦C and 250 ^◦C. The results show that the hardness and tensile properties of Zr-containing cold rolled alloy were superior to that of Zr-free cold rolled alloy before and after process annealing treatment and sensitization heat treatment. Unfortunately, adding Zr to AA5383 alloy significantly degraded the corrosion resistance of the Zr-containing cold rolled alloy annealed at 220 ^◦C. For improving corrosion resistance of Zr-containing alloy, annealing temperature could be increased to 250 ^◦C to avoid a marked drop in the corrosion resistance.