Metallurgically influenced corrosion pitting

Pitting potential increased with increase in chromium contents >20 wt%, and molybdenum of 2-6 wt%. Recent results, applying microelectrochemical techniques, confirmed that even in the superaustenitic stainless steels molybdenum strongly improves the repassivation behavior but has no influence on pit initiation.27 The corrosion resistance of aluminum alloys is totally dependent on metallurgical factors.52, (Frankel)5... 

The first chapter constitutes an introduction to corrosion and various forms of corrosion such as general or uniform or quasi-uniform corrosion, galvanic corrosion, stray current corrosion, localized corrosion, such as pitting and crevice corrosion, metallurgically influenced and microbiologically influenced corrosion, mechanically assisted corrosion and environmentally induced cracking. 

The modern pan metallurgic processes not only reduce the amounts of sulphur in the steel, but also have favourable influences on the inclusion and distribution of sulphides. However, in many corrosive mediums the dissolution of the sulphide inclusions results in stable pitting corrosion only in steels with a low pitting resistance equivalent. In steels with a higher pitting resistance equivalent, the corrosion sites are repassivated. 

The metallurgical characteristics of the aluminum oxide layer also depend on its physical metallurgy, such as defects and metallurgical structure included in the oxide layer. For instance, when intermetallic compound particles as secondary phases are exposed on the surface, a discontinuous oxide film with various defects is often produced at the metal-particle interface. This discontinuous oxide film is weakly or non-protective chemically and physically. Because corrosion is a chemical and electrochemical reaction on the surface, corrosion behavior is readily influenced by surface morphology. The aluminum surface is usually adsorbed or contaminated by water, gases and many kinds of micron-sized substances. Microscopic heterogeneous structures such as vacancies, steps, kinks, and dislocations, and macroscopic heterogeneous structures such as scratches, pits and other superficial blemishes influence the corrosion behavior of aluminum and its alloys to different extents. 

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