Improvement of pitting corrosion resistance of stainless steel by electric current pulse

ABSTRACT

The electric current pulse (ECP) was applied on the liquidus of 304 stainless steel during solidification and the pitting corrosion of the water-quenched specimens was explored in the present work. The results revealed that the utilisation of ECP can inhibit manganese sulphide from segregating around oxide inclusions during solidification and consequently, the pitting corrosion resistance of ECPed steel was significantly improved. Hence, the application of ECP during solidification might be an efficient way to improve the pitting corrosion resistance of the 304 stainless steel.

This paper is part of a themed issue on Materials in External Fields.

KEYWORDS:

• Electric current pulse
• pitting corrosion resistance
• inclusion
• manganese sulphide
• 304 stainless steel

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for many helpful discussions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant No. 51304039, No. 51471047 and No. 51674073, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities No. N130418001, No. N130402021, and No. N150202003.