Large area laser surface treatment of aluminium alloys for pitting corrosion protection

Laser surface treatment has been recognised as a useful method for corrosion protection of surfaces as a result of improved microstructure/phase formation and compositions. In large area applications, overlapping of individual tracks corresponding to the width of the laser beam is often necessary. This involves re-melting and re-beating of a portion of the previous track and results in microstructural changes, such as precipitate coarsening and microsegregation, which may influence localised corrosion at the overlapped regions. The purpose of this work is to investigate the influence of overlapped regions on corrosion behaviour of laser-melted aluminium 2014-T6 alloy. Laser melting was carried out using a 3 kW CW Nd:YAG laser with a line beam profile. The microstructures of the central part and the overlapped region of the melt pool were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Pitting corrosion resistance was evaluated using potentiodynamic anodic polarisation in 1 M NaCl solution. The work revealed enhancement of the pitting potential by 170 mV compared with that of the untreated alloy, similar to that achieved by laser surface melting with a CO2 laser in a Gaussian mode. The line beam profile results in elimination of the planar front zones at the treated surface, but this benefit was offset by a coarser microstructure. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V All rights reserved.