Best Alloys for Common Corrosion Problems
The corrosion of mechanical parts or industrial metal products such as piping is a serious concern, potentially representing safety risks and certainly costing industries significant sums of money.
So, what are the best alloys for commong corrosion problems? A number of newly developed alloy solutions offer alternatives which can both remove or reduce these risks and lower long term costs by inhibiting the causes of many types of corrosion.
Common Types of Corrosion
Some of the most common types of corrosion which affect industries every year include:
- Stress corrosion cracking
- General corrosion
- Erosion corrosion
- Pitting
Stress Corrosion Cracking
Stress corrosion cracking is a serious concern in many industries as it is often one of the more difficult types of corrosion to spot. In many cases the stainless steel or nickel-copper alloys used in mechanical parts appears to be suffering from little or no corrosion.
However, what is happening underneath the surface is that a combination of tensile stresses caused by moving parts or strain and the presence of a corrosive medium results in internal fractures. Over time these fractures spread, resulting in a significant reduction in overall strength and durability.
Unless identified early there is a risk of complete failure. We offer alloy solutions that provide alternatives which prevent the formation of these stress corrosion cracks.
General Corrosion
This is the most common form of corrosion and one fairly easily identified. Metal such as stainless steel begins to exhibit a fairly uniform level of degradation caused by corrosion which is the result of either chemical or electrochemical reactions.
Unless checked early general corrosion can spread quickly over a large surface area, and will continue further down, causing a gradual thinning of the metal to the point where it is liable to break. Moving to alternative alloy materials can prevent this common type of widespread corrosion problem which can very often result in expensive replacements being necessary.
Erosion Corrosion
Where a metal surface is exposed to a regular flow of liquid over its surface there is a reasonable likelihood of erosion corrosion, which is caused by the slow dissolving of surface particles. What can often happen in such circumstances is that weaker elements of the metal surface can be worn away, fragmented or broken off by the regular stream of liquid, hastening the eventual failure of the mechanical part.
There are a number of alloy materials now available at NeoNickel which are able to resist this type of erosion, providing increased performance and safety as well as substantially lowering repair costs in the future.
Pitting
Pitting is the gradual development of holes within the surface of a metal component. These may be very tiny, and so it is easy to underestimate the severity of such a problem.
The pits created in the surface can result in a widespread perforation which could seriously weaken the strength and durability of the metal component, causing unexpected failure. But a secondary concern is the fact that the environment within the pit can cause additional corrosion to take place, meaning that once pitting has begun the time to component failure may be much less than estimated.
Fortunately many of the alloy solutions available today at NeoNickel are designed to resist any tendency to pitting, providing a resilient, smooth surface which extends the life of the product or machine as a whole.
Contact us today to learn more about the best alloys for common corrosion problems.
