Addition of certain alloying elements in steels increase the amount of nitrogen which can be retained on solidification. Addition of nitrogen in austenitic stainless steels can improve their mechanical properties. The increase in nitrogen content along with manganese additions to austenitic steels can balance the decrease in molybdenum and nickel contents of the steels, thus making them cost efficient. Considering the utility and importance of steel alloys, it is very much important to understand the corrosion behavior before using them in industries in the presence of aggressive environments. The study of the systematic investigation and to understand the effect of adding nitrogen and other elements on the dissolution and passivation of stainless steel without molybdenum in hydrochloric acid solutions have been carried out using weight loss and electrochemical techniques. Alloy-2 containing 1087 ppm nitrogen is found to be more resistant to corrosion in HCl solutions than Alloy-1 (853 PPM nitrogen) and Alloy-3 (1447 ppm nitrogen).
I.INTRODUCTION Austenitic stainless steels are of very common use in a wide variety of industries especially in chemical and power plant industries. These steels are used for their heat and creep resistance, high ductility and good resistance to general and localized corrosion. Austenitic steels usually contain alloying elements like chromium, nickel and molybdenum, whereas chromium is an unpronounceable alloying element, use of higher nickel content is recommended to improve the resistance to chloride attack and molybdenum is added to get better resistance to pitting corrosion. f certain alloying elements [1] in steels increases the amount of nitrogen which can be retained on solidification. Chromium and manganese have been found to affect the properties of conventional austenitic stainless steel to an appreciable extent. The austenitic stabilization properties of manganese [2] have been utilized in stainless steel. Chromium is an internal part of the austenitic steels whereas manganese additions can be made to vary the nitrogen contents of the steels. They differ from the conventional austenitic stainless steels in a way that manganese has been substituted for part of nickel, thus allowing greater amount of nitrogen to be dissolved in the matrix of the alloy. Incidental levels of nitrogen are normally higher in stainless steels than in low chromium steels because of the effect of chromium on solubility. Deliberate additions can be made to control structure, to increase strength or to delay in the precipitation of carbides and inter metallic phases [3], in the austenitic and martenistic groups. The requirements of increasing the corrosion resistance of stainless steels to acids, chloride media and increasing the levels of toughness and strength can be met by adding chromium, molybdenum and nitrogen in stainless steels. Magdowski et al. [4] found that a high nitrogen high chromium austenitic cold worked steel is resistant to stress corrosion cracking in environments where a ...