Magnesium alloys have been widely used as lightweight engineering structural materials, but their service performances are severely restricted by corrosion failure. In this paper, the influence of corrosive medium and surface defect energy on the corrosion behavior of rolled ZK61M alloy was investigated. The corrosion tests were conducted in different concentrations of sodium chloride solution for different durations, and the polarization curves and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were reported. The surface morphology of rolled ZK61M alloy before and after corrosion tests were analyzed. The results showed that the corrosion tendency became stronger with the increase of the concentration of corrosive medium and the number of surface defects of ZK61M alloy. Moreover, the initial corrosion pattern was the pitting caused by micro galvanic corrosion at the surface defect, which gradually developed into uniform corrosion. Furthermore, the main damage occurred at the grain boundary, resulting in the destruction of grain bonding force and the removal of material along the rheological layer. The oxidation corrosion mechanism was mainly the anodic dissolution mechanism.
Keywords: corrosion behavior; corrosive medium; rolled ZK61M alloy; surface defect-energy.