Electrochemical and corrosion behaviour of cold rolled AISI 301 in 1 M H2SO4

Stainless steels (SS) are. widely used in several fields. In recent years, the good corrosion resistance as well as the remarkable mechanical properti es. of SS have made it an even more utilised material. Such extensive utili sation produces new concern about its ability to maintain good properties a fter many working processes. In this paper an AISI 301 SS with different de grees of cold deformation has been considered. The cold working of these ma terials produces some important changes in the microstructure (i.e. grain s ize, crystallographic texture) and involves phase transformations (gamma -- > alpha'). Electrochemical measurements have been used to investigate the c orrosion behaviour of the alloy in sulphuric acid in the presence of chlori des. In the anodic behaviour of the cold rolled with respect to the anneale d SS, a moderate variation of the passivity region but a remarkable increas e of the current density was observed. Morphological analyses have been per formed to relate the electrochemical results to the alloy structure. The re lationship between metallurgical properties and corrosion behaviour has bee n discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.