Advances in local mechano-electro chemistry for detecting pitting corrosion in duplex stainless steels

A lot of studies have been carried out on the influence of a plastic deformation on the electrochemical behaviour of stainless steels. But, very few works have mentioned the role of the elastic or residual deformations. Nevertheless, these works reveal at the macroscopic scale the preponderant role of these deformations in the localized corrosion processes. The aim of this work is then to correlate the surface mechanical state to the local electrochemical behaviour of an austeno-ferritic stainless steel. The macroscopic mechanical behaviour of this steel (UNS S31803) has been at first determined by x-ray diffraction. The different domains of elastic and plastic behaviour have then been defined for each phase during tensile tests experiments. These results and the conventional pitting tests show the role of the residual stresses on the starting of the pitting. In complement to X-ray diffraction, a numerical approach has been used in order to determine the local mechanical state at the surface of the material. The coupling of the numerical simulation to local electrochemical measurements by the electrochemical microcell technology has allowed to define mechano-electrochemical criteria which control the starting of the pitting to the austenite-ferrite interfaces. (O.M.)