Mechanism in the effect of external stresses on the oxidation and scale growth kinetic of steels under cyclic temperatures

Abstract The corrosion tests at a constant and cyclic temperature were conducted respectively in the oxidizing environment involving corrosive salts and applied tensile stresses to study the effects of external stresses. Through the observation by SEM and XRD, it was found that stresses exert contrary influence on the corrosion rate at a cyclic temperature to the isothermal temperature possibly due to the breakdown of the passive film. Moreover, the applied stress is theorized to accelerate the diffusion of all the atoms or ions through the substrate and corrosion scales, which is attributed to the increased energy of atoms.