ABSTRACT
High-alloy austenitic stainless steels, duplex stainless steels and Ni base alloys were widely introduced in the 1980s for sea water applications to reduce maintenance costs. They were then thought to have good corrosion resistance. However, most of them have exhibited susceptibility to crevice corrosion and the common techniques previously used to assess materials behaviour have proved to be irrelevant to our service conditions. A large investigation has been conducted in order to simulate and quantify crevice corrosion in the most severe working parameters. A set of methods has been developed to study and analyse the risk of crevice corrosion in agreement with service conditions. These methods take into account the major role of the biofilm in crevice corrosion phenomena and appear to be relevant for the investigation of possible remedies. Some technological solutions to protect sea water piping against crevice corrosion have been proposed.
