Research on pitting corrosion characteristics of X90 steel based on acoustic emission and electrochemistry methods

The X90 pipeline steel pipe is expectedto become the standard steel in future pipeline construction due to its high transmission efficiency and lower cost. However, little study has been conducted on corrosion on-line monitoring of X90 steel. To investigate the pitting development of X90 steel, a combined electrochemical device and acoustic emission (AE) system was set up in this work. The results reveal that the pitting process can be divided into three stages: activation response and passive film rupture, and corrosion pit propagation, and pitting reaction. In addition, the corrosion rate of metal is quite high during the activation reaction and passivation film rupture stage, and the characteristic parameters of the AE signal are very large. In the frequency domain, the frequency range is mostly centered between 100 and 200 kHz, with a peak frequency of about 150 kHz. The corrosion pit propagation stage is the transition stage from metal oxidation to metal pitting reaction. The activity of the signal is low, and the characteristic signal is diminished, and the frequency domain characteristics are comparable to the preceding stage. The signal activity rises, the total signal intensity increases, and several signals exceeding 55 dB arise during the pitting response stage.