Effects of pitting corrosion on the fatigue behavior of aluminum alloy 7075-T6: modeling and experimental studies

The effects of pitting corrosion on the fatigue behavior of bare 7075-T6 aluminum alloy were investigated. Pitting corrosion decreased the fatigue lives by a factor of about 6 to 8. The fatigue lives were also calculated assuming an equivalent initial flaw corresponding to pits of average and maximum dimensions. The measured fatigue lives generally agreed with the predictions using the average rather than the maximum pit size as the initial crack size. This result could be explained by the pit size distributions offering a significantly larger population of pits near the average size. This work has demonstrated the promise of standardized spray tests for obtaining quantitative measures of corrosion that can be used as inputs in analytical models for fatigue life prediction for evaluating integrity of aircraft structures.