Finite element based physical chemical modeling of corrosion in magnesium alloys

Magnesium alloys have found widespread applications in diverse fields such as aerospace, automotive, bio-medical and electronics industries due to its relatively high strength-to-weight ratio. However, stress corrosion cracking of these alloys severely restricts their applications in several novel technologies. Hence, it will be useful to identify the corrosion mechanics of magnesium alloys under external stresses as it can provide further insights on design of these alloys for critical applications. In the present study, the corrosion mechanics of a commonly used magnesium alloy, AZ31, is studied using finite element simulation with a modified constitutive material damage model. The data obtained from the finite element modeling were further used to formulate a mathematical model using computational intelligence algorithm. Sensitivity and parametric analysis of the derived model further corroborated the mechanical response of the alloy in line with the corrosion physics. The proposed approach is anticipated to be useful for materials engineers for optimizing the design criteria for magnesium alloys catered for high temperature applications.