No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Non-uniform corrosion of copper and brass in potable water systems poses both economic and environmental problems associated with premature plumbing failures and release of metals. With respect to copper pitting corrosion, it was found that forensic testing (i.e., in pipe-loops) is the only investigative technique that can closely mimic conditions found in real water systems and produce unambiguous results; and, if used in combination with electrochemical techniques, it may also provide some mechanistic insights into the pitting process. Using pipe-loops, it was demonstrated that copper pitting in aggressive water qualities (i.e., chlorinated, high pH and low alkalinity) is deterministic and reproducible. Additionally, the effects of various chemical and physical factors on pitting were investigated. Overall, increased flow velocity and frequency, increased chlorine residual and decreased hardness were found to accelerate pitting; whereas increased phosphate and silica were found to decelerate pitting. Several mitigation strategies for copper pitting in aggressive water were further investigated, and experimental data were interpreted utilizing electrochemical theory to evaluate specific effects on the initiation and propagation phases of pitting. Surprisingly, it was found that decreased chlorine may delay pit initiation, however, even relatively low levels of chlorine may eventually initiate and propagate pits. Increased alkalinity appears to decelerate pit growth, but does not prevent pit initiation. NOM can delay pit initiation and propagation, although the potential for DBP formation in chlorinated waters makes inhibition by NOM an unfavorable alternative. At sufficient dosages, phosphate and silica corrosion inhibitors may completely stop pitting, consistent with the success of several field trials. At very low dosages, phosphate and silica may actually accelerate pinhole failures, so these inhibitors should not be under-dosed. While brass alloys exist that can limit dezincification problems, they are not always utilized in potable water applications due to high costs, and so dezincification is a re-emerging issue in some countries, including the US. Little research has been conducted in the past several decades regarding the effects of water chemistry, and almost no work has addressed the roles of physical factors associated with real plumbing systems. Thus, a comprehensive review of these topics was conducted. To better understand the effects of some factors associated with specific plumbing installations on dezincification and other brass corrosion types, a series of pipe-loop studies was carried out. It was confirmed that increased oxidant delivery rates to cathodic surfaces, either via increased oxidant concentration or increased flow velocity, can increase corrosion rates. Several key differences were observed with respect to corrosion of brass located in copper plumbing tube systems as opposed to plastic. When copper tubes contribute copper ions to water, brass corrosion becomes more selective for zinc; but if galvanic connections are made between the copper tubes and brass, selectivity for zinc is reduced while overall corrosion rates are accelerated. As opposed to copper tubing, plastic maintains oxidant (e.g., free chlorine) levels, and may thereby increase brass corrosion and build-up of corrosion by-products. Finally, it was found that increased temperature can significantly increase lead leaching from brass. Following recent outbreaks of brass dezincification failures, NSF/ANSI Standard 14 has been revised to require that all NSF 14-listed brass is dezincification resistant, as certified by satisfactory results from an accelerated test method (ISO 6509). Various brasses were tested using this method as well as a longer-term jar method utilizing real potable water. Results of the two tests were in good agreement with respect to dezincification, specifically; but some inconsistencies were observed with respect to uniform corrosion and lead leaching. / Ph. D.

Cette thèse a porté sur la conception d'un capteur de corrosion passif, sans contact de moyenne portée. Les solutions existantes sans fil concernent soit des capteurs à architecture classique, soit des solutions passives. Dans le premier cas, le capteur de corrosion est actif et peut être interrogé à longue portée. Dans le second cas, les solutions passives existantes ne fonctionnent qu’avec des distances de lecture de quelques centimètres du fait des basses fréquences utilisées. L’objectif de ce travail était de répondre à ce besoin. Pour cela, nous nous sommes inspirés de la technologie RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) passive chipless pour le développement d’un capteur basé sur une fonction hyperfréquence. La première structure réalisée a été une ligne microruban, dont le ruban est constitué d’une couche mince d’un élément sensible à la corrosion. Dans ce cas, la corrosion de la ligne s’est traduite par une variation d’amplitude du fait de l’apparition de pertes expliquées principalement par l’effet de peau ou la création de défauts. Une deuxième structure hyperfréquence a été élaborée en se basant sur un stub (circuit ouvert) qui a permis de suivre le processus de la corrosion via une variation de fréquence. Comme le cas de la ligne microruban, cette structure nous a permis de distinguer la corrosion uniforme et la corrosion localisée. Grâce à la mise en évidence de ces fonctionnalités, diverses stratégies de contrôle de la corrosion peuvent être imaginées et un démonstrateur a été réalisé. Le point clé du démonstrateur proposé est une augmentation de la distance de lecture dans la technologie RFID chipless, ceci a été rendu possible en considérant l’isolation Tx / Rx du lecteur. Dans ce contexte, trois types d’antennes ont été étudiées. Afin d’augmenter encore la distance de lecture, d’autres techniques d’isolation ont été proposées : l’utilisation d’un déphaseur mais aussi l’isolation temporelle par l’utilisation d’une ligne à retard SAW. Grâce à ces 2 méthodes, une distance de lecture de deux mètres a été obtenue. Suite aux caractérisations RF des métaux soumis à la corrosion discutées, nous avons aussi élaboré une sonde RF à champ proche permettant de diagnostiquer la corrosion de surfaces métalliques. / This thesis focused on the design of a passive wireless corrosion sensor. Existing wireless solutions concern either classic architecture sensors or passive solutions. In the first case, the corrosion sensor is active and can be interrogated at long range. In the second case, the existing passive solutions only work with reading distances of a few centimeters because of the low frequencies. The objective of this study was to respond to this need. That’s why; we were inspired by the RFID( Radio Frequency Identification) passive chipless technology for the development of a sensor based on a microwave function. The first structure was a microstrip line, of which the strip is composed of a thin layer of an element sensitive to corrosion. In this case, the corrosion of the line is proven by an amplitude variation due to losses principally explained by the skin effect or the creation of defects. A second microwave structure was developed based on a stub (open circuit) which allowed us to follow the process of corrosion via a frequency variation. Much like the microstrip line, this structure allowed us to distinguish between uniform corrosion and localised corrosion. Due to the highlighting of these features, different corrosion control strategies can be imagined and a demonstrator was executed. The key point of the proposed demonstrator is an increase in the reading distance in the chipless RFID technology; this was made possible by taking into consideration the isolation TX / Rx of the reader. In this context, three types of antennas were studied. In order to increase the reading distance, other isolation techniques were proposed: the use of a phase shifter but also a temporal isolation using a SAW delay line. Thanks to these two methods, a reading distance of two meters was obtained. Following the RF characterizations of metals exposed to the discussed corrosion, we also developed a near field RF probe, which allows corrosion diagnostic of metal surfaces.

No description available.

Hydrogen is the smallest element in the periodical table. It has been shown in several studies that hydrogen has a large influence on the corrosion and cracking behaviour of stainless steels. Hydrogen is involved in several of the most common cathode reactions during corrosion and can also cause embrittlement in many stainless steels. Some aspects of the effect of hydrogen on corrosion and hydrogen-induced stress cracking, HISC, of stainless steels were studied in this work. These aspects relate to activation of test specimens for uniform corrosion testing, modification of a test cell for dewpoint corrosion testing and the mechanism of hydrogen-induced stress cracking. The results from uniform corrosion testing of superduplex stainless steels indicated that there is a large difference between passive and activated surfaces in hydrochloric acid and in lower concentrations of sulphuric acid. Hence, initial activation of the test specimen until hydrogen evolution can have a large influence on the results. This may provide another explanation for the differences in iso-corrosion curves for superduplex stainless steels that have previously been attributed to alloying with copper and/or tungsten. In concentrated sulphuric acid, potential oscillations were observed; these oscillations activated the specimen spontaneously. Due to these potential oscillations the influence of activation was negligible in this acid. An experimental set-up was developed for testing dewpoint corrosion of stainless steels in a condensate containing 1 % hydrochloric acid. There was an existing experimental set-up that had to be modified in order to avoid azeotroping of the water and hydrogen chloride system. A separate flask with hydro chloric acid was included in the experimental set-up. The final set-up provided reasonably good agreement with field exposures in contrary to much higher corrosion rates in the original set-up. Relaxation and low temperature creep experiments have been performed with several stainless steels in this work. The aim was to understand how creep and relaxation relates to material properties and the relative ranking between the tested materials. For low temperature creep with a load generating stresses below the yield strength, as well relaxation at stress levels above and below the yield strength, the same ranking with respect to changes in mechanical properties of the steel grades was found. For low temperature creep with a load level above the yield strength, the same ranking was not obtained. This effect can most probably be explained by annihilation and generation of dislocations. During low temperature creep above the yield strength, dislocations were generated. In addition, low temperature creep experiments were performed forone superduplex stainless steel in two different product forms with differentaustenite spacing in the microstructure. The superduplex material experienced low temperature creep at a lower load level for the material with large austenite spacing compared to the one with smaller austenite spacing. Also this differenceis influenced by dislocations. In a material with small austenite spacing the dislocations have more obstacles that they can be locked up against. Studies of the fracture surfaces of hydrogen induced stress cracking, HISC, tested duplex stainless steels showed that HISC is a hydrogen-enhanced localised plasticity, HELP, mechanism. Here a mechanism that takes into account the inhomogeneous deformation of duplex stainless steels was proposed. This mechanism involves an interaction between hydrogen diffusion and plastic straining. Due to the different mechanical properties of the phases in a superduplex stainless steel, plastic straining due to low temperature creep can occur in the softer ferrite phase. A comparison between low temperature creep data showed that for the coarser grained material, HISC occurs at the load levelwhen creep starts. However, in the sample with small austenite spacing, HISC did not occur at this load level. Microhardness measurements indicated that the hydrogen level in the ferrite was not high enough to initiate cracking in the coarser material. The proposed mechanism shows that occurrence of HISC is an interaction between local plasticity and hydrogen diffusion. / QC20100618

In this work, Slow Strain Rate Test (SSRT) testing, Light Optical Microscopy (LOM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were used to study the effect of micro-structure, corrosive environments and cathodic polarisation on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of two grades of high strength steels, Type A and Type B. Type A is manufactured by quench and tempered (Q&T) method. Type B, a normalize steel was used as reference. This study also supports electrochemical polarisation resistance method as an effective testing technique for measuring the uniform corrosion rate. SSRT samples were chosen from base metal, weld metal and Heat Affected Zone (HAZ). SSRT tests were performed at room temperature under free corrosion potential and cathodic polarisation using 4 mA/cm2 in 1 wt% and 3.5 wt% NaCl solutions. From the obtained corrosion rate measurements performed in 1 wt% and 3.5 wt% NaCl solutions it was observed that increased chloride concentration and dissolved oxygen content enhanced the uniform corrosion for all tested materials. Moreover, the obtained results from SSRT tests demonstrate that both Q&T and normalized steels were not susceptible to SCC in certain strain rate(1×10-6s-1) in 1 wt% and 3.5 wt% NaCl solutions under free corrosion potential. It was con-firmed by a ductile fracture mode and high reduction in area. The weld metal of Type A with acicular ferrite (AF), pro-eutectoid (PF) and bainite microstructure showed higher susceptibility to hydrogen assisted stress corrosion cracking compared to base metal and HAZ. In addition, typical brittle intergranular cracking with small reduction in area was observed on the fracture surface of the Type A due to hydrogen charging.

No description available.

No description available.