Corrosion Cracking Phenomena Under Different Polarizing and Microstructural Conditions in a 304 Stainless Steel Tested in Low Temperature Acid Solutions

Experiments have shown that for the various microstructural conditions of 304 type stainless steels (i.e., annealed, cold worked, and dynamically recrystallized), there was no evidence of cracking in specimens tested under freely corroding conditions. At the more active potentials (i.e., -500 to -1000 mV s.c.e.), an increased susceptibility to cracking was observed, reaching a maximum within the potential range from -500 to -800 mV s.c.e. However, the tests performed under conditions of slow dynamic straining showed that increased amounts of previous cold work have damaging effects upon the cracking susceptibility, while all refrigeration treatments have a slight beneficial effect on cracking resistance at the more active potentials.