Surface Treatments on Al Alloys and Composites

This article will give a review of the surface treatments commonly applied to Aluminum alloys substrates. As for any other metallic substrate, a surface finishing will protect aluminum only if the surface layer develops good adhesion to the substrate. Therefore, the article starts with a summary of the common cleaning process steps and continues with the presentation of pretreatment process alternatives. The finishing surface treatments presented in this article are painting, anodizing and metallic coating deposition, as they represent the most common and widely applied solution to protect aluminum substrates from corrosion and wear, increasing, therefore, the substrate durability.