Abstract
Austenitic stainless steels suffer intergranular attack in boiling nitric acid with oxidants. The intergranular corrosion is mainly caused by the segregation of impurities at the 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 corrosion behavior of type 310 EHP alloy with respect to nitric acid solution with highly oxidizing ions (boiling 8kmol/m3 HNO3 solutions containing 1kg/m3 Cr(VI) ions) was investigated. The straining, aging and recrystallizing (SAR) treated type 310 EHP alloy showed superior corrosion resistance for intergranular attack than solution annealed (ST) type 310 EHP alloy with same impurity level. Boron segregation at the grain boundary was detected in only ST specimen using a Fission Track Etching method. It is believed that the segregated boron along the grain boundaries in type 310 EHP alloy was one of main factor of intergranular corrosion. The SAR treatment was effective to restrain the intergranular corrosion for type 310 EHP alloy with B less than 7ppm.
