Investigation of the effect of corrosion rate on post welded heat treatment of medium carbon steel in seawater

In this study, the effects of corrosion rate on post welded annealed heat-treated medium carbon steel in seawater was investigated. The medium carbon steel samples were butt-welded by using the Shielded Metal Arc Welding (SMAW) technique and, afterwards, heat treated by annealing at different annealing temperature was carried out. The microstructure of the unwelded and post welded heated samples was characterised by means of optical microscopy. The as received (control), unwelded and post welded annealed medium carbon steel samples were immersed in sea water for a duration of one hundred (100) days, and this was to stimulate the effect on equipment in offshore and food processing applications. Post welded heat treatment on the microstructure, weight loss and corrosion rate were evaluated. The results obtained showed an initial increase in both the weight loss and corrosion rate of samples up to 40 days and started decreasing afterwards. It was equally observed that the post welded annealed samples showed more corrosion activities than the un-welded annealed samples. Above and beyond, corrosion activity was more prominent in samples with the highest annealing temperature. More so, the unwelded annealed medium carbon steel showed a dispersion of coalescence cementite and ferrite grain while the post welded annealed medium carbon steel samples showed a martensite (light area marked by arrows) distributed in the ferrite (dark area) matrix.