Controlling Surface Chemistry to Deconvolute Corrosion Benefits Derived from SMAT Processing

Grain refinement through surface plastic deformation processes such as surface mechanical attrition treatment has shown measureable benefits for mechanical properties, but the impact on corrosion behavior has been inconsistent. Many factors obfuscate the particular corrosion mechanisms at work, including grain size, but also texture, processing contamination, and surface roughness. Many studies attempting to link corrosion and grain size have not been able to decouple these effects. Here we introduce a preprocessing step to mitigate the surface contamination effects that have been a concern in previous corrosion studies on plastically deformed surfaces; this allows comparison of corrosion behavior across grain sizes while controlling for texture and surface roughness. Potentiodynamic polarization in aqueous NaCl solution suggests that different corrosion mechanisms are responsible for samples prepared with the preprocessing step.