Environmental effect on the fatigue performance of bare and oxide coated 7075-T6 alloy

Fatigue behaviors of bare and anodic oxide coated 7075-T6 alloy have been investigated in laboratory air and 3.5%NaCI solution environment by using smooth cylindrical specimens. Presence of corrosive attack during fatigue test drastically reduced fatigue performance of the alloy. The deleterious effect was observed to be pronounced at high-cycles fatigue region, where the fatigue strength of the bare specimen was lowered by a factor of 2.9. However, the oxide coated specimens having a thickness of 23 μm showed a modest reduction in fatigue strength. Corrosion fatigue (CF) strength of the bare specimens was predominantly controlled by pitting-induced crack nucleation. Examinations on the surfaces of the corrosion-fatigued and immersed test specimens revealed that cyclic loading stimulated corrosion pit formation during CF tests. Also, corrosion behaviors of both the coated and bare specimen shave been investigated by potentiodynamic test. Despite superior corrosion resistance of coated specimens, fatigue performance was adversely affected under the combined action of corrosion attack and cyclic loading.