Abstract
The corrosion fatigue behaviour of 304 stainless steel was studied as a funciion of grain size, sensitisation, cyclic load, H2SO4 concentration (1 M– 5 M) and in 5 M H2SO4 +1 M NaCl. Parallel experiments were carried out in air. Sensitisation accelerated the corrosion faiigue in all solutions, while in air the fatigue behaviour was not affected. With the coarse-grained material, the fatigue resistance both in air and in solutions was generally lower than that obtained when using non-sensitised fine-grained material. Although 1 M H2SO4 was a passivating solution, the fatigue lifefor the three conditions studied in it was shorter than in air. The decrease in fatigue limit was approximately 40%.5 M H2SO4 solution was found to be the most aggressive solution, reducing the fatigue resistance very considerably and eliminating the fatigue limit. In 5 M H2SO4 + 1 M NaCl the corrosion was greatly reduced and the fatigue resistance was generally better than that obtained in 5 M H2SO4, particularly for the sensitised material.
The corrosion fatigue behaviour of stainless steel is discussed in the light of the results of corrosion studies in absence of load and of the fatigue behaviour in air.
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