Sensitization and Intergranular Corrosion of Stainless Steels An Insight. What are stainless steels? Stainless steels are alloys of iron and carbon containing a minimum of about 10.5% chromium. The presence of chromium ensures the formation of a ultra-thin, invisible, protective, self-healing passive film on the steel surface, mainly made up of chromium oxides and hydroxides; Cr2O3 and Cr(OH)3. This oxide film is insoluble, compact and adheres well to the substrate thereby p

Impact Testing A comparison of Charpy and Izod Impact Tests. The impact test has been used extensively in mechanical testing of steel products, in research, and in procurement specifications for over three decades. Where correlations with fracture mechanics parameters are available, it is possible to specify CVN (Charpy V-notch) toughness values that would ensure elasticplastic or plastic behavior for fracture of fatigue cracked specimens subjected to minimum operating tempe

X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF): A technique of material characterization. Introduction: X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) is a popular method for the qualitative and quantitative determination of the elemental composition of a material sample. XRF is similar to atomic absorption spectrometry and optical emission spectrometry except that the sample is not required to be dissolved in a solution to be analyzed. The sample for XRF analysis may be in the form of a sol