Stress corrosion cracking: Crevice interaction in austenitic stainless steels characterized by acoustic emission

Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) susceptibility of austenitic EN1.4301 (AISI 304) and EN1.4404 (AISI 316L) stainless steels was studied using the constant load method and polymer (PTFE) crevice former in order to study the effects of crevice on SCC susceptibility. The uniaxial active loading tests were performed in 50 pct CaCl2 at 373 K (100 °C) and in 0.1 M NaCl at 353 K (80 °C) under open-circuit corrosion potential (OCP) and electrochemical polarization. Pitting, crevice, and SCC corrosion were characterized and identified by acoustic emission (AE) analysis using ∆t filtering and the linear locationing technique. The correlation of AE parameters including amplitude, duration, rise time, counts, and energy were used to identify the different types of corrosion. The stages of crevice corrosion and SCC induced by constant active load/crevice former were monitored by AE. In the early phase of the tests, some low amplitude AE activity was detected. In the steady-state phase, the AE activity was low, and toward the end of the test, it increased with the increasing amplitude of the impulses. AE allowed a good correlation between AE signals and corrosion damage. Although crevice corrosion and SCC induced AE signals overlapped slightly, a good correlation between them and microscopical characterization and stress-strain data was found. Especially, the activity of AE signals increased in the early and final stages of the SCC experiment under constant active load conditions corresponding to the changes in the measured steady-state creep strain rate of the specimen. The results of the constant active load/crevice former test indicate that a crevice can initiate SCC even in the mild chloride solution at low temperatures. Based on the mechanistic model of SCC, the rate determining step in SCC is thought to be the generation of vacancies by selective dissolution, which is supported by the low activity phase of AE during the steady-state creep strain rate region.