The corrosion inhibition of a polyamine compound, N-(4-amino-2, 3-dimethylbutyl)-2, 3dimethylbutane-1, 4-diamine (ADDD), was investigated for HAl77-2 copper alloy in 3 wt.% NaCl solution. Electrochemical measurements, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) techniques were employed for this research. The results show that ADDD strongly suppresses the corrosion of HAl77-2 alloy. The inhibition efficiency of ADDD is 98.6% at 0.5 mM, which is better than benzotriazole (BTAH) at the same concentration. Polarization curves indicate that ADDD is an anodic type inhibitor. Surface analysis suggests that a protective film is formed via the interaction of ADDD and copper. FT-IR reveals that the inhibition mechanism of ADDD is dominated by chemisorption onto the copper alloy surface to form an inhibition film. Furthermore, quantum chemical calculation and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations methods show that ADDD adsorbs on HAl77-2 surface via amino group in its molecule. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.