CORROSION SENSING BEHAVIOR OF ALUMINUM AND ALUMINUM ALLOYS COATED ON CNT-ENHANCED FIBERS

Aluminum alloys have been widely used for aircraft structural materials due to their high strength and low density. These alloys, however, are susceptible to localized corrosion such as pitting corrosion, crevice corrosion, exfoliation corrosion and intergranular corrosion (IGC), hydrogen embrittlement as well as stress corrosion cracking (SCC). Therefore the early detection of corrosion in aircraft structural materials is very important. Unfortunately, by the time visual detection of corrosion is possible, costly repairs and replacement of materials are required.
This study has fabricated aluminum and aluminum alloys coated on onto “fuzzy” carbon and glass fibers (CNT grown on fibers; “fuzzy” refers to the appearance under magnification of the CNT-covered fiber). Experimental results of this study show that these Al coated carbon-CNT and glass-CNT fibers can be tailored to perform as corrosion sensors for early detection of aluminum corrosion.