Assessing the tribo-corrosion resistance of surface nanostructured stainless-steel

In this work, surface mechanical rolling treatment (SMRT) was applied as a post-process nanostructuring technique to improve the tribo-corrosion degradation resistance of coarse grain (CG) 316L stainless steel (SS). The experimental findings reveal that when tribo-corrosion wear took place, the CG specimen experienced severe surface de-passivation, which increased wear-corrosion synergy and the rate of material loss. On the other hand, the SMRT specimen experienced enhanced re-passivation kinetics, which reduced wear-corrosion synergy and the rate of material loss. The wear mechanism for both the CG and SMRT specimens was abrasion-dominant, with the CG specimen having the presence of micro-pits within the wear track. In addition to these findings, the reduced surface roughness, improved hardness, formed compressive stresses, microstructural refinement, and martensite phase transformation induced by the SMRT process contributed to the enhanced tribo-corrosion resistance of the SMRT specimen. In total, SMRT was found to be a feasible technique to improve the tribocorrosion resistance of CG 316L SS.