Correlation of Surface Alloyed Microstructure of Pure Magnesium With its Corrosion Behavior
This paper represents a summary of experimental results dealing with the time dependence of surface diffusion alloyed microstructure and its corrosion behavior at given temperature. The experiments were performed at 485°C for different solid diffusion time (6h, 12h, 18h ) and thus the surface alloyed microstructure of pure magnesium has been obtained. Optical and electrical microscopy and EDS compositions analysis were used to examine the cross sectional microstructure characteristics of alloyed layers of treated samples. It is shown that the new phases formed and its continuity, depending on the diffusion treated time at given temperature, have a noticeable influence on corrosion resistance and corrosion mechanism. The new formed phase Al5Mg11Zn4 was inert to the chloride solution compared with pure magnesium and acted as a corrosion barrier. It was concluded that the continuous Al5Mg11Zn4 phase was beneficial from the point of view of corrosion resistance.