The Corrosion Behaviors of Stainless Steel Weldments in Sodium Chloride Solution Observed Using A Novel Electrochemical Measurement Approach

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The corrosion behaviors of stainless steel weldments in sodium chloridesolution observed using a novel electrochemical measurement approach
 Jianyu Xiong, Mike Yongjun Tan
, Maria Forsyth
Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University, Locked Bag 20000, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia
H I G H L I G H T S
 A new method was applied to study the corrosion behaviors of selected welding zones.
 Each zone on the stainless steel weldment exhibited different corrosion behaviors.
 Corrosion behaviors were discussed from surface conditions and microstructure.
 The method could distinguish different corrosion behaviors of different welding zones.
a b s t r a c ta r t i c l e i n f o
 Article history:
Received 22 May 2013Received in revised form 7 August 2013Accepted 8 August 2013Available online 4 September 2013
Keywords:
Corrosion testingPolarization testStainless steelsWeldmentPitting corrosion
Stainlesssteelslike316stainlesssteel(SS316)and2205duplexstainlesssteel(SS2205)havebeenwidelyusedinindustriessuchasdesalinationbecauseoftheirexcellentgeneralcorrosionresistance.Howeverthecorrosionre-sistant characteristics of stainless steels may be adversely affected by welding process that could result in mod-i
󿬁
cationsoflocal composition and microstructures.It isthereforecriticalto assess and understand the corrosionbehaviorsofstainlesssteelweldments.Inthiswork,anovelapproachtocarryoutelectrochemicalmeasurementsonselectedweldingzoneswasemployed.Standardpolarizationtestswereappliedtotheselectedzonesonstain-lesssteelweldmentsexposedtosodiumchloridesolutions.WeldmentsofSS316andSS2205werechosenasex-amplestoillustratetheapplicationofthisnovelelectrochemicalmeasurementapproach.Theresultsshowedthateach zone on the stainless steel weldments exhibited different corrosion characteristics and the weldments of SS316and SS2205behaved differently.Theresults suggestedthatSS2205weldmentwaslessresistant topittingcorrosion than SS316 weldment, although SS2205 base metal had much better pitting corrosion resistance thanSS316 base metal.The corrosion behavior ofeach of the zones was con
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rmedto be affectedby the surface mor-phology, microstructure and surface composition.© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Stainlesssteelsarewidelyusedinavarietyofindustriesduetotheirappropriate mechanical properties and weldability. Especially, withexcellent corrosion resistance, some stainless steels are employedin
 󿬁
elds where aggressive media are involved, such as desalination[1]. However, in chloride containing seawater desalination environ-ments, stainless steels are susceptible to localized corrosion attacks(e.g., pitting corrosion, intergranular corrosion and stress corrosioncracking) [2]. Stainless steels have good weldability, but weldingcan increase their susceptibility to localized corrosion because thewelding process can result in changes of microstructures, formationof thermal oxide (heat tint) and residual stresses [3,4]. Furthermore,duetothenon-uniformtemperaturedistributionduringtheweldingthermal cycle, the changesinmicrostructuresand surface conditions
 Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 52272443.
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Fig. 1.
 Designated zones of weld, HAZ1, HAZ2 and base metal on a 316 stainless steelweldment.0011-9164/$
 –
 see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2013.08.006
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Desalination
 journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/desal
 
are non-uniform. Thus, every different zone of a weldment is expectedtohavedifferentcorrosionbehavior.Corrosionofweldmentshasbeenaconcern in the desalination industry [5
7]. It is therefore critical to as-sess and understand the corrosion behaviors of stainless steel weld-ments in desalination environmental conditions.Some studieshavebeencarriedouttounderstand thelocalizedcor-rosionprocessesonpassivemetalweldments[8,9].Inthosestudies,thestandard polarization method ASTM G-61 [10] has been used for large-area electrodes. This method applies an anodic voltage scan from thecorrosionpotentialand thescanningstarts to reverse towardsthe orig-inalcorrosionpotentialwhenthecurrentdensityreachesasetvalue.Inthistestingmethod,thesusceptibilitytoinitiationoflocalizedcorrosionis indicated by the potential at which the anodic current increases rap-idly, i.e., the breakdown potential (or pitting potential, E
pit
). Althoughthis standard test is able to estimate the susceptibility of a stainlesssteel to pitting corrosion by determining the critical pitting potential,it is not applicable to a weldment where signi
󿬁
cant heterogeneitiesexist over different heat affected zones. Electrochemical methodsin-cluding the standard polarization method are designed basedonuni-form electrodes, and therefore in principle they are applicable only touniform electrode surfaces. The results from the measurement of ahighly heterogeneous weldment would be highly uncertain since theyare mixtures of complex responses to various heat affected zones.To overcome this technical drawback, microelectrochemical methodshave been developed to study localized corrosion processes onsmall areas of passive metals [11
14]. Most of these methods usemicrocapillary-based droplet cells due to the advantage of the mi-crometer range size of the exposed working area [15]. However,these methods cannot perform standard tests because of a numberoftechnicaldif 
󿬁
culties,forinstancethevolumeofelectrolyteinthemicrocapillary istoo small, and electrolyte cannot
󿬂
ow through thecapillary tip [16]. Recently a speci
󿬁
c small-scale electrochemicalcell called
 
minicell
 which allows studying sizes in a range from200 to 1000
 μ 
m has been applied to study different forms of local-ized corrosion of austenitic stainless steels weldments [17,18].Nevertheless, the
 
minicell
 technique is still limited to extremelysmall volume of testing solution and it is dif 
󿬁
cult to apply standardtesting conditions for the local cell tests.
Fig.2.
Potentiodynamicpolarizationtestresultsfor(a)weld,(b)HAZ1,(c)HAZ2,(d)basemetal and (e) whole weldment of SS316.
Fig. 3.
 Surface morphologies of selected zones: (a) weld, (b) HAZ1, (c) HAZ2 and (d) base metal of SS316 weldment after potentiodynamic polarization measurements.40
 J. Xiong et al. / Desalination 327 (2013) 39
45
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The present work applies a method that is capable of distinguishingcorrosion behaviors of different zones on large-area stainless steelweldments under standard testing conditions. The aim is to developthis testing method into a useful material selection tool for the sea-water desalination industry, and to obtain further understanding of the corrosion behaviors of the stainless steel weldments. SS316 andSS2205 weldments were chosen as examples to illustrate the appli-cation of this testing method because the materials are widely usedin desalination plants. Pitting corrosion susceptibility of the selectedzones was investigated by standard potentiodynamic polarizationtests. To understand the corrosion behaviors, surface characteristicsand microstructure of each zone on the stainless steel weldmentswere also analyzed.
2. Materials and methods
Samples including the weld, heat tint area, and base metal werecut from the weldments of SS316, and SS2205. The stainless steelweldments were provided by a commercial company. Wires were at-tached to the backs of the samples and then the samples were embed-ded in epoxy resin that covers the sides and backs of the samples andleaves thetestingsurfaces exposed.The testingsurfaceswere ultrason-icallycleanedindistilledwaterandethanol,anddriedinair.Fourzones,namely weld, HAZ1, HAZ2 and base metal, were designated on each of the weldment samples (as shown in Fig. 1). The dimensions of each of the selected zones were 1 cm × 1 cm. Each time only one zone wasexposed and tested by coating all the rest area of the sample withcommercial clear nail oil.The potentiodynamic polarization measurements were carriedout according to ASTM standard G-61 [10]. Bio-Logic potentiostat/ galvanostat and EC-Lab software were used for the electrochemicaltests. A conventional corrosion cell with three electrodes was utilized,inwhichatestingsamplewasusedastheworkingelectrode,atitaniummeshasthecounter-electrodeandaAg/AgClelectrodeasthereferenceelectrode. All potentials reported in this work were referred to thereference electrode. Measurements of the pitting potential wereconducted at ambient temperature in de-aerated aqueous NaCl
Fig. 5.
 Surface morphologies of selected zones formed during welding process: (a) weld, (b) HAZ1, (c) HAZ2 and (d) base metal of SS316 weldment.
Fig.4.
Potentiodynamicpolarizationtestresultsfor(a)weld,(b)HAZ1,(c)HAZ2,(d)basemetal and (e) whole weldment of SS2205.41
 J. Xiong et al. / Desalination 327 (2013) 39
45
5
 
solution with a concentration of 234 ppm and a pH value of 8. Be-fore polarization the working electrode was immersed in the testsolution until a stable open circuit voltage (V 
oc
) was obtained.Then the electrode potential was scanned from the V 
oc
 with a rateof 0.166 mV/s. When the current reached 5 mA, the scanning wasreversed towards V 
oc
. To ensure reproducibility, each test was re-peated three times.The surface morphology of each of the selected zones on the SS316and SS2205 weldments was observed using a scanning electron mi-croscope (SEM, Supra 55VP, Germany) with a voltage of 10 kV anda working distance of 10 mm. The metallographic characterizationof the stainless steel weldments was also performed. Compositionalinformationofthesurfaceofeachzoneonthestainlesssteelweldmentswas obtained by depth pro
󿬁
ling analysis using a Leco GDS850A glowdischargeopticalemissionspectrometer(GDOES).Thesignalswerede-tected from an area of approximately 4 mm diameter at 700 V and20 mA direct current conditions.
3. Results and discussion
PotentiodynamicpolarizationtestresultsoftheSS316weldmentareshown in Fig. 2. It can be seen that the anodic current increased withincreasing potential gradually for the weld and HAZ1 zones, indicat-ing the absence of passive
 󿬁
lms at these two zones. In other words,the weld and the HAZ1 zones exhibited active corrosion behaviors.On the other hand, HAZ2 and the base metal zones behaved as pas-sive metals that current increased very slowly with the increasingpotential until the potential reached a critical value where thecurrent started to increase abruptly. The rapid increase in currentat this potential usually means the breakdown of passive
 󿬁
lm onthe metal surface and indicates localized corrosion, commonlyknown as pitting corrosion. The pitting potentials of HAZ2 andbase metal zones were 0.3 V and 0.7 V respectively. In the presentwork, the corrosion behavior of the whole weldment including allthe four zones was also tested. The result indicated that the wholeweldment of SS316 also behaved as active metal, similar to theweld zone. Comparing the corrosion behaviors of each of the select-ed zones and the whole weldment, it suggested that measuring thewhole weldment area would not distinguish the difference in corro-sion behavior between the different zones on the weldment; thecorrosion behavior of the weld zone and the HAZ1 zone could beso dominant that passive behaviors of the HAZ2 and base metalzones were
 “
over-looked
. After the electrochemical measurements,the surfaces were observed by SEM. As shown in Fig. 3, pits formedin each zone on the SS316 weldment after the electrochemicalmeasurements.Fig. 4 shows the potentiodynamic polarization test results of theSS2205 weldment. Different behaviors were observed from theSS2205 weldment. It is interesting to note that only the base metalzone behaved as passive metal, all other zones behaved as activemetal.This resultssuggestedthattheSS2205weldmenthadlesscor-rosion resistance to pitting corrosion than that of SS316 weldment,although the pitting potential of SS2205 base metal zone (approxi-mately 1.2 V) was much higher than that of SS316 base metal zone(0.7 V). This resultsuggested thatcare mustbe paid toSS2205 weld-ment corrosion.
Fig. 6.
 Surface morphologies of selected zones formed during welding process: (a) weld, (b) HAZ1, (c) HAZ2 and (d) base metal of SS2205 weldment.42
 J. Xiong et al. / Desalination 327 (2013) 39
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