The influence of plastic deformation on the structure of passive films on carbon steel in simulated pore solution
- Resource Type
- article
- Authors
- Feng, Xingguo; Lu, Xiangyu; Zuo, Yu; Chen, Da
- Source
- Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society. February 2014 25(2)
- Subject
- concrete
carbon steel
passive films
Mott-Schottky
AFM
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 0103-5053
The process of passivation of carbon steel when experiencing plastic deformation in simulated pore solution has been studied using electrochemical tests and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The polarization results show that the activity of the carbon steel increased with increasing degree of deformation. Before the passive films were ruptured, the heavily deformed samples presented a high open circuit potential (OCP). On the other hand, the pitting incubation time decreased with increasing plastic deformation. The Mott-Schottky results suggested that the high deformation caused the passive films to be heavily doped. In addition, the space charge layers of passive films were thinned when the plastic deformation increased. The AFM observations indicated that the passive films become more inhomogeneous as the deformation increased. These results demonstrate that passive films on the deformed carbon steel become unstable when the plastic deformation increases.