X-ray Computed Microtomography Evaluation of Electrochemically Accelerated Stainless Steel Crevice Corrosion

Abstract This work reports the electrochemical and X-ray tomography characterization of crevice corrosion for an additively manufactured stainless steel. The cell design includes a three electrode configuration with an integrated crevice former for full electrochemical control. The crevice former design utilized a spring to induce force upon the crevice former and tape to defined the crevice. The cell was evaluated with a series of potentiostatic holds from 0.05 to 0.95 VSCE to observe crevice corrosion initiation and propagation across a range of current densities. In this proof of concept demonstration, X-ray computed microtomography (XCMT) reconstructions were used to observed electrochemical potential dependent crevice corrosion propagation that was compared with coulometry and postmortem profilometry. Volume loss calculations based on XCMT reconstructions displayed good correlation with electrochemical measurements. We demonstrate this approach as a promising non-destructive tool for crevice corrosion characterization, limited primarily by the inherent limitations of X-ray tomography systems.