Environmental Degradation of Marine Aluminum Alloys - Past, Present and Future

Aluminum alloy usage in maritime environments has fluctuated over the past 125 years with localized corrosion or environment sensitive cracking during service repeatedly preventing their full commercial exploitation, despite a series of innovations. Following a historical overview, discussion will focus on aluminum-magnesium alloys, highlighting current corrosion-related issues (e.g., intergranular corrosion, environment sensitive cracking) and potential opportunities to eliminate these problems in future commercial alloys.