Stress corrosion cracking of B13, a new high strength aluminium lithium alloy

The present paper focuses on the study of SCC behaviour of a new Al-Cu-Li alloy. For this purpose, two conventional media - NaCl and NaCl + H2O2 - were used for comparison with commercial alloys 7075 and 8090. This new alloy shows lower susceptibility to SCC than conventional alloys as it does not undergo environmentally-induced embrittlement in NaCl solutions and in 1 M NaCl + 0.3% H2O2 in which the 7075 and 8090 alloys, respectively, undergo environmentally-induced fracture. Solution composition was modified in order to determine the environmental conditions and strain rates under which this new alloy will crack due to a stress corrosion cracking phenomenon. The addition of 0.6 M sulphates to 1 M NaCl + 0.3% H2O2 solution allows the definition of a range of strain rate (between 10-7 and 10-6 s-1) in which this new alloy undergoes stress corrosion cracking. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.