Superduplex stainless steels (SDSS) are frequently employed in the petrochemical industries where is required high mechanical strength, toughness, and corrosion resistance. However, these properties can be affected by deleterious phases formation due thermomechanical processes applied in the field during pipes and vessels construction. This work propose the nondestructive microstructural characterization of deleterious phases precipitated in SDSS isothermally treated in 800 and 850ºC using portable double loop electrochemical polarization reactivation tests (DL-EPR). The results obtained in this nondestructive test are quite close to those obtained by conventional test, and can be correlated with the amount of deleterious phases precipitated. It can be concluded that the microstructural degradation of superduplex stainless steel can be evaluated by portable DL-EPR test with slow sweep rates, using a special cell and a proper electrolyte at room temperature.

This work investigates the influence of deleterious phases precipitation on the corrosion resistance of two wrought superduplex stainless steels UNS S32750 with similar composition, but different grain sizes. Isothermal treatments were carried out to introduce different amounts of deleterious phases, such as chi (χ), sigma (σ) and secondary austenite (γ2). The specimens were tested by double loop electrochemical potentiodynamic reactivation test (DL-EPR). The kinetics of precipitation in the two steels was different due to the difference of the grain sizes. The results show a correlation between the sensitization degrees, measured by DL-EPR, with the amount of deleterious phases precipitated.