Corrosion properties of 1.4512 ferritic and 1.4404 austenitic steels for the automotive industry

Exhaust systems are susceptible to in-service wear because of their exposition to the very aggressive corrosive environment. Various stainless steels grades (mostly ferritic and austenitic, but also martensitic and duplex) and protective coatings are currently used for exhaust system elements to increase their aestetics and corrosion resistance. This article focuses on evaluation and comparison of the common corrosion properties of two stainless steels with different microstructures (ferritic and austenitic) used for exhaust system components at the low ambient temperature (35 °C). An aggressive acidic corrosion solution for electrochemical cyclic potentiodynamic tests (ASTM G61) was chosen to simulate partly inner (condensate) and also external environment (reaction of exhaust gases with water, chlorides in solution after winter road maintenance). Exposure tests of the pitting corrosion resistance were performed according to ASTM G48 standard method.