The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, in support of its geothermal mineral and metal recovery program, has conducted a series of field corrosion and electrochemical tests in the geothermal environments of the Imperial Valley of California. This paper presents the results of a 45-day field corrosion test conducted in 1978 on six stainless steel alloys (>10Cr) exposed to brine and steam environments of well Magnamax #1 on the Salton Sea field and electrochemical data on fourteen stainless steel alloys (>10Cr) exposed to wellhead brine. Stainless steels have excellent to good resistance to general corrosion, but are highly susceptible to pitting and crevice corrosion. Type 316 L stainless steel was found to undergo intergranular corrosion and transgranular stress corrosion cracking. Increasing the molybdenum content reduced general corrosion, while higher contents of nickel and molybdenum reduced pitting.

Subject
Marine environments, Materials, Molybdenum, Stainless alloys, Corrosion rate, Nickel based alloys, General corrosion rate, Brines, Pitting, Stainless steel, Nickel, Steam, Alloys
© 1981 Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of AMPP. Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AMPP. Responsibility for the content of the work lies solely with the author(s).
1981
Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP)
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