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Received: October 06, 2023; Revised: October 23, 2023; Accepted: October 24, 2023
Abstract: There are a variety of heat exchangers used in automobiles, such as shell and tube heat exchangers, double tube heat exchangers, and plate heat exchangers. Most of them are water-cooled to prevent engine overheating. There have been reports of corrosion damage to these heat exchangers due to continuous wetting caused by external temperature differences, road pollutants, and snow removal. In addition, galvanic corrosion, which occurs when two dissimilar materials come into contact, has been identified as a major cause. In this study, corrosion characteristics and galvanic corrosion behavior of Al alloy (AA3003, AA4045 and AA7072) used in automobile heat exchangers were analyzed. Effective clad materials for heat exchanger tubes and fins were also evaluated. It was found that AA7072 should be applied as the cladding material for fin AA3003 and that AA4045 was suitable as a cladding material for tube AA3003 because this clad materials application was the most effective clad design to delay the occurrence of pinhole in the tube. Main factors influencing galvanic corrosion dissolution were found to be galvanic corrosion potential difference and galvanic corrosion current density.