Investigation of mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of fine-grained aluminum alloys Al-Zn with reduced zinc content

•Al-(1, 2, 3)%Zn alloys were fabricated by induction casting and ECAP.•Increasing of Zn concentration results in reduction of recrystallization activation energy.•The increasing of Zn concentration results in increasing of maximum elongation to failure in creep regime (at Т = 200 °С).•In superplasticity regime, dynamic recrystallization of the Al-Zn alloys was observed.•The elongation to failure of the Al-Zn alloys in the superplasticity regime doesn't depend on the Zn concentration. Mechanical properties of fine-grained Al-(1, 2, 3)%Zn alloys obtained by Equal Channel Angle Pressing were studied. The recrystallization activation energy was found to decrease with increasing Zn content. The Hall-Petch coefficient for the Al-Zn alloys was found to change nonmonotonously during annealing. An increased Zn concentration at the grain boundaries was shown to result in altering the creep and superplasticity mechanisms of the Al-Zn alloys. The corrosion rate of the Al-Zn alloys was found to depend on the annealing temperature nonmonotonously. The corrosion rate in the Al-(2,3)%Zn alloy was shown to decreasing down to 8–9 mm/year with increasing the annealing temperature up to 200 оC. The increasing of the annealing temperature up to 300 оC leads to the increasing of the corrosion rate up to 11.4–11.9 mm/year. The obtained results were analyzed on the base of a concept of solid phase wetting of the grain boundaries in the Al by Zn. The effect of solid state wetting of the grains boundaries was shown to allow explaining majority of anomalia observed in the Al-Zn alloys: (i) the effect of the reduction of the recrystallization activation energy; (ii) the effect of a non-monotonous variation of the Hall-Petch coefficient during annealing; (iii) an increasing of plasticity of the Al-Zn alloys in the creep regime, etc. In order to describe the anomalia in the corrosion resistance of the Al-Zn alloys, one should also take into account a nonuniform Zn distribution in the specimens.