Abstract
The environmental performance of 316L grade stainless steel, in the form of tensile specimens containing a single corrosion pit with various aspect ratios, under cyclic loading in aerated chloride solutions is investigated in this study. Results from environmental tests were compared and contrasted with those obtained using finite element analysis (FEA). Fractography of the failed specimens obtained from experiments revealed that fatigue crack initiation took place at the base of the shallow pit. The crack initiation shifted towards the shoulder and the mouth of the pit for pits of increasing depth. This process is well predicted by FEA, as the strain contour maps show that strain is the highest around the centric strip of the pit. However, for shallow pits, local strain is uniformly distributed around that strip but begins to concentrate more towards the shoulder and the mouth region for increasingly deep pits.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2009-2019 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Materials and Corrosion |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| Early online date | 21 Jun 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Nov 2019 |
Keywords
- 316L stainless steel
- Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC)
- corrosion pits
- fatigue
- pit-to-crack transition
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Environmental Chemistry
- Mechanics of Materials
- Mechanical Engineering
- Surfaces, Coatings and Films
- Metals and Alloys
- Materials Chemistry