Long-term marine immersion corrosion of welded ABS grade steels

ABSTRACT

Welded Joints long-term integrity is of particular importance to large vessels, such as frigates or bulk carriers. Downtime due to corrosion concerns can be onerous. Ship classification organisations, such as The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), standardises processes and product approval programmes for materials manufacturers. High-strength steels are of particular interest due to their high strength to cost ratio for large marine vessel construction. The corrosion performance of such steels has been studied, but data on the specific degradation of such metals when welded and for the welds themselves are scarce. The present paper reports marine immersion corrosion pit depth data for several ABS steel grade weld permutations and exposed to different sites for up to 2.5 years. The implications of the presented results are discussed as well as the possible influence of alloying elements and microstructural differences on the underlying corrosion kinetics.

KEYWORDS:

• Mild steel
• ABS steel
• sea water
• corrosion
• pitting
• microstructure

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contribution of DST Group in the provision of sponsorship and sample materials. The authors also acknowledge Simon Krismer for his assistance in preparation, cleaning and measurement of the first set of retrieved coupons, and the invaluable support of Bruce Cartwright retrieving the samples from Darwin, and Dr Robert Petersen retrieving from Port of Newcastle and Taylors Beach. Jeremy Rosen acknowledges the support of the University of Newcastle in the provision of a Defence Research Scholarship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by The University of Newcastle Defence Innovation Network RHD program.