Electrochemical behavior of the simulated heat-affected zone of A516 carbon steel in H 2S solution

Abstract

Electrochemical behavior of the simulated grain-coarsened heat-affected zone (HAZ) of A516 carbon steel in an H 2S containing acidic chloride solution was investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurement at open circuit potential at 25 °C. EIS measurement was made for the specimens, prepared with three different heat input conditions (15, 30 and 45 kJ.cm −1) by thermal simulation with a Gleeble machine, in the H 2S containing solution. The results show that the corrosion process of the simulated grain-coarsened HAZ can be divided into two stages regardless of the heat input condition. At an early stage, the impedance which is characterized by one large semicircle in the Nyquist plot increases with immersion time. At a later stage, the precipitation of sulfide film modifies the surface properties and leads to a variation in the EIS data by revealing a capacitive effect in the low frequency region. The polarization resistance initially increases with immersion time but then decreases gradually. Equivalent circuits containing two or three time constants are proposed to represent the corrosion processes at different stages.