Material Selection and Corrosion Protection for Bi-Metallic Systems in Automotive Environments

This paper addresses the use of aluminum and magnesium as light weight materials for automobile suspension and engine applications. It will review the methods of approach in protecting these components from automotive environments and some of the coatings used to insulate bi-metallic couples.

Most of the results that follow have been supported by extensive testing in accelerated environments designed to simulate worst case automotive field exposure. The test parameters will be discussed and several A-B comparisons shown.