Investigation of a single pit generated with a flow microcell

S. Heurtault (1) , R. Robin (1) , F. Rouillard (1) , V. Vivier (2)

1 CEA-DES (ex-DEN) - CEA-Direction des Energies (ex-Direction de l'Energie Nucléaire)
2 LISE - Laboratoire Interfaces et Systèmes Electrochimiques

Pitting corrosion has been widely studied in the last decades on stainless steel, but since it results in a random succession of single or multiple events at the metal surface, it remains difficult to study experimentally. It is thus necessary to work on a single pit for a better understanding of mechanisms governing pitting from its initiation to the propagation or its repassivation. This work aims at bringing new insight on the pit propagation description on 316L stainless steel. In a first step, we will describe the experimental setup allowing to generate and to sustain a single pit (Figure 1 left). Then, the propagation phase will be investigated (Figure 1 right) and a particular attention will be paid to the description of both radial and deep evolutions. It will be also shown that electrochemical impedance spectroscopy can be performed on a single pit.

Keywords: pitting corrosion; local electrochemistry; signe event; chloride

Domains: Physics [physics]; Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]; Physics [physics]; Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]

S. Heurtault, R. Robin, F. Rouillard, V. Vivier. Investigation of a single pit generated with a flow microcell. EMCR-2015 - 11th International Symposium on Electrochemical Methods in Corrosion Research, May 2015, Troia, Portugal. ⟨cea-02506808⟩