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Surface treatments for the improvement of mechanical and cavitation resistance of Al 6082 alloy

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Abstract

Nowadays, naval propellers are made in Ni-Al or Mn-Al bronzes, which are affected by high cavitation erosion. In this study, the possibility of adopting 6xxx alloy with different superficial treatments obtained through fluidised beds and laser surface texturing was investigated. 6xxx alloy series is known for its versatility due to an excellent mix of mechanical and physical properties, combined with ease of processing, welding, and good chemical resistance; however, its main drawback is low resistance to cavitation erosion. In this study, a total of 4 different surface treatments were produced and characterized such as fluidised bed coatings (Al2O3, S280) and laser textured samples (0–30% overlap). Moreover, the effect of a heat-treatment was evaluated for each kind of specimen analysed. The study was divided into two steps: in the first phase, the samples were morphologically and mechanically characterised through roughness measurements, micro-hardness, scratch, wear, and wettability tests. Successively, a modified ASTM-G32-10 standard was adopted to assess the cavitation erosion resistance; in particular, for each sample, mass and volume loss were analysed and compared to the as-built sample. Results showed a drastic reduction of the wear evaluated through pin-on-disk tests with the application of the high hardness coatings (Al2O3, S280) while a reduction of the cavitation erosion volume of about 20% lower was obtained through the best laser texturing treatment.

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The processed data generated and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are particularly grateful to the Interuniversity Research Centre CIRTIBS for the equipment and the financial support to develop the present research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Enterprise Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

    Silvio Genna

  2. CIRTIBS Research Centre, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, via Roma 29, 81031, Aversa (CE), Italy

    Silvio Genna & Claudio Leone

  3. Department of Engineering, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, via Roma 29, 81031, Aversa (CE), Italy

    Claudio Leone

  4. Department of Engineering, University Niccolò Cusano, Via Don Carlo Gnocchi 3, 00166, Rome (RM), Italy

    Emanuele Mingione

  5. Department of Economics, Engineering, Society, and Business Organization, Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Via del Paradiso, 47, 01100, Viterbo, Italy

    Gianluca Rubino

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  1. Silvio Genna
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  2. Claudio Leone
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  4. Gianluca Rubino
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Contributions

SG: conceptualization, investigation, data curation, formal analysis. CL: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, resources, supervision. EM: investigation, writing—original draft, data curation, visualization. GR: investigation, data curation, supervision, writing—original draft

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Correspondence to Emanuele Mingione.

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Genna, S., Leone, C., Mingione, E. et al. Surface treatments for the improvement of mechanical and cavitation resistance of Al 6082 alloy. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 129, 5149–5165 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-12411-z

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