Susceptibility of Intergranular Corrosion for Extra High Purity Austenitic Stainless Steel in Nitric Acid Available to Purchase

Austenitic stainless steels suffer intergranular attack in boiling nitric acid with oxidants. The intergranular corrosion is mainly caused by the segregation of impurities to grain. An extra high purity austenitic stainless steel (EHP alloys) was developed with conducting the new multiple refined melting technique in order to suppress the total harmful impurities less than 100ppm. The basically corrosion behavior of type 310 EHP alloy with respect to nitric acid solution with highly oxidizing ions was investigated. The straining, aging and recrystallizing (SAR) treated type 310 EHP alloy showed superior corrosion resistance for intergranular attack. The segregated boron along the grain boundaries was one of main factor of intergranular corrosion from fission track etching results. The SAR treatment was effective to restrain the intergranular attack for type 310 EHP alloy with B less than 7ppm.