Aluminum surfboard

According to foreign media, a surfboard company in Utopik, in Brittany, France, has been designing and manufacturing aluminum sandwich surfboards since 2020. A company official said that its products are made of aluminum alloy and wood. The wood is eco-friendly and comes from non-invasive, fast-growing trees that absorb carbon dioxide at a high rate. And the surfboards can be recycled in a closed-circuit cycle, much higher than current polymer surfboards. The aluminum alloy surfboard entered test production in June 2021. It can be predicted that the entry of aluminum alloy will bring great changes to the future of the surfing industry.

Surfing is a popular summer water sport. But do you know what surfboards are made of? Most surfboards are made of fiberglass reinforced aluminum matrix composites, which are strong but not as affordable or recyclable. One of the best materials for surfboards is aluminum alloy. At present, foreign companies are developing all-aluminum surfboards.

But the aluminum used to make surfboards has its own special requirements. Surfing is mostly carried out in the coastal, sea water is a strong corrosive medium, which puts forward high requirements on the corrosion resistance of materials. Aluminum and aluminum alloys have a layer of oxide film on the surface, so that the material has a high corrosion resistance. All can improve the density of oxide film, increase the thickness of oxide film, improve the insulation property of oxide film, are helpful to improve the corrosion resistance of aluminum and aluminum alloy. On the contrary, the factors that reduce the effectiveness of the oxide film, whether mechanical or chemical, will cause the corrosion resistance of aluminum and aluminum alloy to decline sharply.

The corrosion resistance of aluminum alloy in alkaline solution and seawater decreases in the following order: Al-Mg alloy, industrial pure aluminum, Al-Mn alloy, al-Mg-Si alloy, Al-Zn-Mg alloy, Al-Si alloy, Al-Zn-Cu-Mg alloy, Al-Cu-Mg alloy, Al-Cu alloy. However, the above order of corrosion resistance holds only when the alloys sensitive to spallation, intergranular or stress corrosion cracking have been heat treated to remove these sensitivities. At the same time, this order is not rigorous. In this general order, Al-Mg alloys, or series 5000 alloys, are the most resistant to seawater corrosion. Therefore, the author recommends using Type 5083, Type 5054 and Type 5454 alloys for surfboards.