Simulation of pitting corrosion behavior of CUSTOM 450 stainless steel by COMSOL software and DIC method

The CUSTOM 450 gas turbine compressor blades are corroded in chlorine environments. The initiation and growth of pits and cracks lead to failure. In this paper, prediction of the pitting corrosion behavior of the alloy is studied. In this regard, in the laboratory section, two-point bending specimen is first subjected to different potentials in a 3.5 wt.% sodium chloride solution to cause pitting corrosion and finally leads to failure at the maximum bending region. According to different potentiostatic tests, an equation is proposed to predict the pitting and life time of stressed sample at different potentials. In the numerical section, the strain in the grown pits is calculated by using digital image correlation method and also the COMSOL Multiphysics software. The location of the localized maximum strain obtained from these two methods is in good agreement with growth of the corrosion pits in the electrochemical experiments. Thus, without needs of experiments, the growth direction of the pit can be simulated.