PSI - Issue 82

Goran Vukelić et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 82 (2026) 24 – 29 Vukelić et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2026) 000–000

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Fig. 2. The average percentage of change in mass (MC) for additively manufactured AlSi10Mg0.6 exposed to the natural marine environment for three and six months, with a control group kept at room atmosphere (RA). The values are shown for uncleaned and cleaned specimens. Understanding the influence of the marine environment on the strength of structural materials is of critical importance in the design and construction of marine structures (Načinović et al., 2024). In this study, engineering stress-strain curves were generated from uniaxial tensile tests performed on welded specimens following exposure to a corrosive marine environment for one, three, and six months. Each test group comprised ten specimens, five being exposed to the natural environment in the northern Adriatic, and five being exposed to the natural environment at the southern Adriatic. This was done to balance the possible differences in the environmental conditions over the Adriatic Sea, which acted as a natural laboratory. The stress-strain curves, Fig. 3, represent the average results between the group of specimens exposed at two different locations.

Fig. 3. Engineering stress-strain diagrams for additively manufactured AlSi10Mg0.6 exposed to the natural marine environment for three (3 M) and six (6 M) months, with a control group kept at room atmosphere (RA). 4. Discussion and conclusion The results presented in Fig. 2 show an increase in mass for specimens weighed without cleaning after marine exposure. The increase is +1.5 % at three months, and +2.5 % at six months. The mass gain over time reflects the accumulation of corrosion products and marine deposits on the specimen surface. In a chloride-rich environment,