Localised corrosion factors

The various types of localised corrosion have been enumerated in Table 1.2 in Section 1.1, and many of them are dealt with in some detail in other sections of this volume. For this reason this section will be confined to a consideration of the factors that give rise to crevice corrosion, filiform corrosion, pitting, selective leaching and erosion-corrosion and of the mechanisms of these forms of localised attack. 

This form of attack, especially as affecting copper alloys in sea water, has been widely studied since the pioneer work of Bengough and May . Impingement attack of sea water pipe and heat exchanger systems is considered in Sections 1.6 and 4.2. In such engineering systems the water flow is invariably turbulent and the thickness of the laminar boundary layer is an important factor in controlling localised corrosion. 

Localised attack or fracture due to the synergistic action of a mechanical factor and corrosion... 

Although corrosion is due to the thermodynamic instability of a metal in a specific environment, and although in many metal/environment systems attack will tend to be uniform, there are a variety of factors associated with the metal, the environment and the geometry of the system that may result in the attack being localised. 

In addition to impurities, other factors such as fluid flow and heat transfer often exert an important influence in practice. Fluid flow accentuates the effects of impurities by increasing their rate of transport to the corroding surface and may in some cases hinder the formation of (or even remove) protective films, e.g. nickel in HF. In conditions of heat transfer the rate of corrosion is more likely to be governed by the effective temperature of the metal surface than by that of the solution. When the metal is hotter than the acidic solution corrosion is likely to be greater than that experienced by a similar combination under isothermal conditions. The increase in corrosion that may arise through the heat transfer effect can be particularly serious with any metal or alloy that owes its corrosion resistance to passivity, since it appears that passivity breaks down rather suddenly above a critical temperature, which, however, in turn depends on the composition and concentration of the acid. If the breakdown of passivity is only partial, pitting may develop or corrosion may become localised at hot spots if, however, passivity fails completely, more or less uniform corrosion is likely to occur. 

The local dissolution rate, passivation rate, film thickness and mechanical properties of the oxide are obviously important factors when crack initiation is generated by localised plastic deformation. Film-induced cleavage may or may not be an important contributor to the growth of the crack but the nature of the passive film is certain to be of some importance. The increased corrosion resistance of the passive films formed on ferritic stainless steels caused by increasing the chromium content in the alloy arises because there is an increased enhancement of chromium in the film and the... 

In Section 1.1 corrosion was defined simply as the reaction of a metal with its environment, and it was emphasised that this term embraces a number of concepts of which the rate of attack per unit area of the metal surface, the extent of attack in relation to the thickness of the metal and its form (uniform, localised, intergranular, cracking, etc.) are the most significant. The rate of corrosion is obviously the most important parameter, and will determine the life of a given metal structure. Whether or not a given rate of corrosion can be tolerated will, of course, depend upon a variety of factors such as the thickness of the metal, the function and anticipated life of the metal structure and the effect of the corrosion products on the environment, etc. 

Risk evaluation programmes exist, for pressure vessels, which take into account European Directives [12] the risk factor - related to material brittleness and embrittlement, corrosion effects and localised stresses - is elevated and requires the adoption of rigorous safety measures. The manufacture and control procedures - including welding parameters and structural solutions - should be, in this case, more accurate and devoted to avoid the described defects. 

Several factors influencing localised form of corrosion in austenitic type SS316 LNwere studied. These include temperature of the medium and surface treatment by N-ion implantation. In the case of the welds, the role of solute elements have been independently examined through their influence on the ferrite content. In all the cases, electrochemical techniques like linear polarization measurements were employed to determine the corrosion sensitivity range and establish the corrosion resistance regimes. 

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