Abstract
Recently, the fuel oil of diesel engines of marine ships has been increasingly changed to heavy oil of low quality as the oil price is getting higher and higher. Therefore, the spiral gear attached at the motor of the oil purifier which plays an important role to purify the heavy oil is also easy to expose at severe environmental condition due to the purification of the heavy oil in higher temperature. Thus, the material of the spiral gear requires a better mechanical strength, wear and corrosion resistance. In this study, the heat treatment(tempering) with various holding time at temperature of $500^{\circ}C$ was carried out to the alloy of Cu-7Al-2.5Si as centrifugal casting, and the properties of both hardness and corrosion resistance with and without heat treatment were investigated with observation of the microstructure and with electrochemical methods, such as measurement of corrosion potential, cathodic and anodic polarization curves, cyclic voltammogram, and a.c. impedance. in natural seawater solution. The ${\alpha}$, ${\beta}^{\prime}$ and ${\gamma}_2$ phases were observed in the material in spite of no heat treatment due to quenching effect of a spin mold. However, their phases, that is, ${\beta}^{\prime}$ and ${\gamma}_2$ phases decreased gradually with increasing the holding time at a constant temperature of $500^{\circ}C$. The hardness more or less decreased with heat treatment, however its corrosion resistance was improved with the heat treatment. Furthermore, the longer holding time, the better corrosion resistance. In addition, when the holding time was 48hrs, its corrosion current density showed the lowest value. The pattern of corroded surface was nearly similar to that of the pitting corrosion, and this morphology was greatly observed in the case of no heat treatment. It is considered that ${\gamma}_2$ phase at the grain boundary was corroded preferentially as an anode. However, the pattern of general corrosion exhibited increasingly due to decreasing the ${\gamma}_2$ phase with heat treatment. Consequently, it is suggested that the corrosion resistance of Cu-7Al-2.5Si alloy can be improved with the heat treatment as a holding time for 48 hrs at $500^{\circ}C$.
