Material characterisation of anodising effects on small fatigue crack nucleation in AA7XXX alloys

The precursor cleaning steps in the anodising surface finish process for aluminium alloy aircraft parts are known to lead to etching of surface-breaking intermetallic particles and grain boundaries, which in turn leads to preferential sites for fatigue crack nucleation. Type 1C anodising per MIL-A-8625F, is a favoured aircraft aluminium part corrosion protection treatment meeting modern health and environmental requirements. Type 1C anodising uses electrolysis in a non-chromic acid bath (typically based on sulphuric, boric-sulphuric or phosphoric acid formulations) to develop a thick aluminium oxide surface layer. In previous studies the equivalent initial damage sizes of these nucleation sites was calculated from near surface fatigue crack growth measurements using quantitative fractography in both Type 1C anodised aluminium alloy 7050-T7451 and 7085-T7452. A notable difference was observed in the values for these two materials with AA7085-T7452 equivalent initial damage sizes being significantly smaller. Since these values are critical crack starting size assumptions in fatigue life analysis for aircraft fleets, the observed differences must be investigated and explained for notionally similar alloys under identical conditions.In this work, the material surrounding the population of crack nucleation sites in several Type 1C anodised fatigue tested specimens manufactured from AA7050-T7451 and AA7085-T7452 materials has been charac-terised using precise surface preparation methods and scanning electron microscopy techniques. It has been demonstrated that there is a statistically significant difference in the number, size, aspect ratio and distribution of surface breaking Al7Cu2Fe intermetallic particles beneath the anodising layer that, when etched out during the anodising process, are responsible for fatigue crack nucleation in 7050-T7451 over 7085-T7452 material. The increased size, angular shape and coverage of these intermetallics in AA7050 serves to increase their effec-tiveness as preferential locations for fatigue crack nucleation through two mechanisms, as a highly localised stress concentrating feature, as well as through their ability to sample more of the material's microstructural features ensuring a discontinuity is present in the most favourable orientation and location for fatigue crack nucleation.