In this work, the effects of the tropical marine atmospheric environment on the corrosion behaviour of the 7B04-T74 aluminium alloy were systematically investigated by using accelerated testing, together with corrosion kinetic analysis, microstructure observation, product composition analysis, and potentiodynamic polarization curve tests. The weight loss method was used for the corrosion kinetics analysis. The surface morphology and corrosion products transformation law were investigated by OM, SEM, EDS, and XPS. The electrochemical characteristics were studied using potentiodynamic polarization curves. The research indicated that the 7B04-T74 aluminium alloy has eminent corrosion resistance in the tropical marine atmospheric environment. Localized pitting corrosion occurred rapidly in the tropical marine atmosphere. In the later stage of corrosion, the corrosion of aluminium alloy did not become serious. Specifically, no obvious intergranular corrosion was found, which is related to the thermal treatment method. Corrosion products included Al(OH)₃, Al₂O₃, and AlCl₃, of which Al(OH)₃ is the most notable.

The 7xxx-series aluminum alloys are widely used in aircrafts due to their superior performance. The evolution of the mechanical properties of the aluminum alloys caused by marine atmospheric corrosion has become a research hotspot due to the increase in aircraft service time in the marine atmospheric environment. In this work, the evolution of the mechanical properties of the 7B04-T74 aluminum alloy was studied by an alternate immersion test. The surface microstructure was analyzed by SEM, EDS, XRD, and OM. The influence of the marine atmospheric corrosion on mechanical properties was studied by tensile and fatigue tests. The results show that the 7B04-T74 aluminum alloy has good corrosion resistance, as only pitting corrosion occurs in the marine atmospheric environment. The tensile properties of the 7B04-T74 aluminum alloy remained fundamentally the same before and after corrosion. The fatigue properties of the 7B04-T74 aluminum alloy were severely reduced, but the localized pitting corrosion only affected the initiation stage of the crack and had little effect on the crack propagation process.

In this paper, the damage monitoring investigation based on the remote bonding fiber Bragg grating sensing is performed on the aerospace aluminum alloy thin-walled structure with prefabricated damage. Firstly, an ultrasonic excitation-fiber Bragg gratings (UE-FBGs) sensing experimental platform is established for the simulation of defects monitoring, in which the sensors are placed at a certain distance from the bonding area. Secondly, different arrangements of exciters and receivers are utilized for the original signals and the damage signals. Subsequently, the raw signals are processed by filter and feature extraction in order to denoise the signals and acquire the parameters sensitive to the damage. Finally, an improved Reconstruction for Image Defects (RAPID) algorithm is used to locate and reconstruct the pre-existing damage. The results show that the proposed system improves the sensitivity of the FBG receiver signal and the accuracy of the damage imaging.