Investigation of the Effect of Corrosion Pitting on Fatigue Life of Aluminum Structure

摘要

This report presents the results of testing to obtain data on the effect of pitting corrosion on the fatigue life of aluminum specimens. Forty-one coupons of 7075-T6 that had previously been exposed at various USAF bases around the world for up to a year were fatigue tested. The amount of corrosion on each had been previously characterized in terms of mass lost per unit of surface area. Additional characterization of the corrosion with surface roughness traces was done after the fatigue tests. After a threshold level of corrosion was reached, fatigue life generally decreased with increasing mass loss. Surface roughness generally increased with increasing mass loss as well. However, strong relationships could not be established in either case because of the limited amount of data and the scatter inherent in both fatigue and corrosion.