Oxidation of injection molding 316L stainless steel at high temperature

AISI316L stainless steel has been injection molded for the fabrication of s mall parts of complex geometry. This work consists in pioneer effort to eva luate the high temperature corrosion rate of such material. To that end, co rrosion tests have been carried out for 200 h at different temperatures (70 0 degreesC and 900 degreesC). The nature of the corrosion products was anal yzed by optical and scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and ED S Microprobe analysis. The results indicated that porosity not only increas ed the kinetics of the corrosion process, but also determined the nature of the resulting oxide layer.