Effect of different environmental parameters on pitting behavior of AISI type 316L stainless steel: Experimental studies and neural network modeling

AISI type 316L stainless steel was subjected to electrochemical polarization tests in an aqueous environment of varying chloride ion concentration (17,500-70,000 ppm), pH (1.23-5.0) and temperature (298-333 K). Values of critical pitting potentials (E-pit) were determined from the polarization tests. Increasing concentration and temperature, and decreasing pH were found to decrease the E-pit. Eighty values of E-pit, at different chloride concentrations, pH and temperature were used to model the pitting corrosion behavior of type 316L stainless steel using the artificial neural network (ANN) approach. A good correlation between experimental and predicted data was obtained. The developed ANN model was employed to simulate the intricate inter-relationships between E-pit and various environmental parameters in AISI type 316L stainless steel. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.