Introduction to Surface Analysis Techniques of Aluminum

Abstract

Surface analyses are important in R&D of aluminum products because of high plastic forming performances of aluminum alloys. In this paper, three examples of surface analyses of aluminum are shown to demonstrate that statistical data processing, appropriate calibration and pretreatment of samples are essential to achieve real pictures of surfaces. First example is an evaluation of interface adhesion between a hard coating and aluminum alloy in nano-indentation method. Second example shows how to obtain two dimensional distribution of oxide layer thickness using a calibration line in EPMA. In the final example, oxide and hydroxide films are analyzed by FT-IR and GD-OES.