International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET)
Volume 10, Issue 01, January 2019, pp. 1551-1560, Article ID: IJCIET_10_01_142
Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/ijciet/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=10&IType=01
ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316
© IAEME Publication
Scopus Indexed
ASCERTAINMENT OF THE CHANGE OF THE
DUCTILITY IN CORRODED STEEL
SPECIMENS BY EXPERIMENT
Antonio Shopov
Department “Strength of materials”, Technical University of Sofia –
8, “Kliment Ohridski” blvd., Sofia, 1000, Bulgaria, European Union
Borislav Bonev
Department “Microelectronics”, Technical University of Sofia –
8, “Kliment Ohridski” blvd., Sofia, 1000, Bulgaria, European Union
ABSTRACT
The studies of the ductility of the materials date back to ancient times. The basic
values of the stress-strain diagram, which determines the groups in the main zones the elastic zone, the yield zone, the strengthening zone and the fracture zone, are known.
There are main construction steel elements always where corrosion is at an advanced
stage. The corrosion of construction steel is an inevitable process. The negative
consequences that indicate the corrosion of the steel elements have been partially
established and opportunities for solving them should be sought. We conducted an
experiment to determine how the ductility and main values of the stress-strain curve of
corroded steel samples changed. We used S355JR steel and applied a galvanostatic
electrochemical accelerated corrosion method. After that, we performed a tensile test
of the samples, we took the values from the stress-strain diagrams and we calculated
how the basic stress-strain values and the corresponding ductility changed. We used
the stochastic method to process the results. We have come to the conclusion that
corrosion affects the basic values, the ductility and the structural change of the material
and when (and if) it is elastic-plastic, according to the stress-strain diagram, it is
transformed into brittle material.
Key words: ductility, corrosion, electrochemical accelerated corrosion method,
Cite this Article: Antonio Shopov and Borislav Bonev, Ascertainment of the Change
of the Ductility in Corroded Steel Specimens by Experiment, International Journal of
Civil Engineering and Technology, 10(01), 2019, pp. 1551–1560
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Antonio Shopov and Borislav Bonev
1. INTRODUCTION
The basic definition of ductility is the measure of the ability of the material to undergo
significant plastic deformation before rupture, which may be expressed in percentages during
the processes of elongation or area reduction, while undergoing a tensile test [1-2]. Ductility is
particularly important concerning steel as materials that crack, break or shatter under stress,
cannot be manipulated using metal-forming processes such as hammering, rolling, drawing or
extruding [1-2]. High degrees of ductility occur in steel elements, which are found
predominantly in metals, leading to the common perception that metals in general are ductile.
In metallic bonds valence shell electrons are de-localized and shared between many atoms [12]. The de-localized electrons enable metal atoms to slide past one another without being
subjected to strong repulsive forces that would cause other materials to shatter [1-2]. Ductility
can be quantified by the fracture strain, which is the engineering strain at which a test specimen
fractures during an uniaxial tensile test [1-2]. Another commonly used measure is the reduction
of the area of fracture [1-2]. The ductility of construction steel varies depending on the
constituents of the alloy [1-2]. The increase in the levels of carbon decreases [1-2]. Some
authors make a note that the mechanism for determining mechanical properties resulting from
corrosion and stress corrosion is also complicated by additional factors such as energy
accumulation, environmental impact, action of sulphate-restoring bacteria, electrochemical and
destructive processes in a structural layer [3], that means ductility it would be depended from
exactly the same factors. According to some regulations, every construction element from steel
need to have a certain ductility, but when the corrosion is occupied (Figure 1) there are not
guarantee that ductility is not changed. Some researchers study an altering the mechanical
properties or ductility [4-18, 22] of corroded steels and all of which examine stress-strain and
ductility problems and their possible characterization, and some formulas or corresponding
derived dependencies are also available in some of them. It is known, that if a mechanical
property is changed that means that a stress-strain diagram is changed too. Which means that
an elastic strain, plastic strain, strengthening strain and fracture strain will be changed too. The
purpose of this study is to establish how ductility is changed on steel with corrosion.
Figure 1 Structure with corroded steel elements
2. ACCELERATED CORROSION METHOD
A widely used method for accelerated corrosion is electrochemical corrosion [4-8]. This
method achieves anodic dissolution of the steel by flowing of direct current through the test
specimen. The test sample is connected to the positive pole of the power supply (anode) and
the negative pole of the power supply is connected to a stainless-steel plate or other inert metal
(cathode). It can be stabilized the voltage between the anode and cathode or current through
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Ascertainment of the Change of the Ductility in Corroded Steel Specimens by Experiment
test specimen. The use of the second option does not require adjustments during accelerated
corrosion and allows us approximately to determine daily weight loss [18]. We use a system,
developed by us using the current stabilization (the so-called galvanostatic method) to realize
accelerated corrosion. Details of the developed system are presented in [22].
We have chosen a current of 600 mA, where the loss of mass for 24 hours determined by
the Faraday formula is [22]:
%
100
100
56 0.6 24 60
375 2.5 96484
60
3,21 %,
1
where M = 56 g/mol is the atomic mass of the ferric ion, I[A] – electric current through the test
specimen, t[s] – time duration of the treatment, W[g] is the weight of the steel specimen before
corrosion treatment, z is the valence of the ferric ion (z = 2,5 is the average value for Fe2+ and
Fe3+ ions of the corrosion products), F = 96484 C/mol is the Faraday constant.
The number of test specimens is 16, separated into two groups. The time duration of the
treatment for group A is 14 days and for group B – 5 days. In this case, the approximate
percentage weight loss is 50 % for group A and 20 % for group B.
The accelerated corrosion system used consists of 75 adjustable current stabilizers, the
current of each of which can be adjusted within the range of 16-200 mA. The system allows
parallel connection of current stabilizers. Therefore, a current of 600 mA can be obtained by
the parallel connection of three current stabilizers, each set to 200 mA. A block diagram of the
experimental setup is shown in Figure 2 [22].
(a)
(b)
Figure 2 (a) Block scheme of the experimental setup; (b) Photograph of the experimental setup
Weight measurements before corrosion treatment and after corrosion treatment and corrosion
products removal are performed with precision balance. Moments of these measurements are
shown in Figure 3a and Figure 3b.
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(a)
(b)
Figure 3 (a) Weight measurement of the test specimens before corrosion treatment; (b) Weight
measurement of the test specimens after corrosion treatment and corrosion products removal
3. MATERIAL AND STEEL SPECIMEN
3.1. Steel specimen and tensile test
Dimensions of the test specimen depend on many factors. The researchers have chosen what
dimensions to be used on their steel specimen [9-12, 15, 18, 22]. We prefer to use a steel
specimen which parallel length is a 15d [18, 22], because is established that the best and most
reliable results are obtained right then [18, 19]. Dimensions and photos of our steel specimen
are shown in Figure 4a and Figure 4b.
(a)
(b)
Figure 4 The used steel specimen – (a) dimensions; (b) photograph
(a)
(b)
Figure 5 (a) Steel specimens before accelerated corrosion method performing; (b) moment of tensile
test of the steel specimen with corrosion
We used a universal testing machine MESSPHYSIK model BETA200-7/6x14 for the tensile
test of the steel specimens [18, 22], but according standard ISO 8407:2009 we need to remove
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Ascertainment of the Change of the Ductility in Corroded Steel Specimens by Experiment
corrosion products (rust) from our samples [6, 18, 22]. We remove corrosion on steel specimens
in hydrochloric acid [6, 18, 22] - 10 min, in solution of 500 ml hydrochloric acid with 1000 ml
distilled water and 3.5g hexamethylenetetramine on temperature 20 °C [18, 22]. Photograph of
a steel specimen after removing corrosion products (rust) is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6 Photograph of Steel specimen after remove corrosion products (rust)
3.2. Material
Every author using different steel materials, it depends on basic study which is make it [4-18,
22]. Main parts of tank wagon (for example) are design of structural steel S355J2 [20], but the
difference between S355JR and S355J2 is that the first have a withstand an impact energy of
27J at +20 °C, the second have withstand an impact energy of 27J at -20 °C, but the stressstrain curve is exactly the same. The steel S355JR is most popular for steel structures in
Bulgaria [18, 22]. We prefer to use in our study a structural steel S355JR, as we do [18, 22]
with the chemical composition is given on table 1, according standard EN 10025-2-2004. It is
known that a chemical element silicon (Si) is given a more strength, but the negative effect is
that is reducing a corrosion resistance and elongation and transverse contraction.
Table 1 Chemical composition on steel S355JR
C
max
0.2
4
Si
max
0.55
Chemical composition, [%]
Mn
P
S
N
max
max
max
max
0.01
1.6
0.04 0.04
2
Cu
CEV
max
0.55
max
0.47
We used a classic stress-strain curve (Figure 7) of S355JR steel and take a main value of
strain, which is interest for us.
(a)
(b)
Figure 7 (a) Stress-strain curve of S355JR steel; (b) main values (points) of ductility
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Table 2 Main values from classic stress-stain curve on S355JR steel
main value
ε, [%]
σ, [MPa]
elastic
strain
plastic
strain
strengthening
strain
fracture
strain
εel, [%]
εy, [%]
εu, [%]
εf, [%]
0.0234
0.6218
1.9025
2.4235
381.6688
368.4887
460.9131
289.2526
4. RESULTS
We have 16 steel specimens, divided in 2 (two) groups – Group A (for 14 days electrochemical
accelerated corrosion) and Group B (for 5 days electrochemical accelerated corrosion). The
results are given in Tables 3, 4 and 5 (for group A) and Table 6, 7 and 8 (for group B). We use
the stochastic method to process [18, 21, 22] the obtained empirical data (main values - strain
and stress), as these are random variables [21]. In Figure 8 is show a stress-strain curves (after
process of values – stochastic and average) after tensile test on corroded steel specimens and
accelerated corrosion results for group A. In Figure 9 is show a stress-strain curves (after
process of values – stochastic and average) after tensile test on corroded steel specimens and
accelerated corrosion results for group B. Probability of our results – group A is 89.42 % and
group B is 88.14 %.
Table 3 Results for group A – strain values
initially
weight
final
weight
elastic
strain
εel
plastic
strain
εy
strengthening
strain
εu
fracture
strain
εf
(g)
(g)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
1
377.515
204.016
0.167
0.249
0.610
0.741
2
378.757
206.264
0.123
0.532
0.743
0.840
3
367.692
196.750
0.138
0.195
0.382
0.448
4
373.743
201.754
0.125
0.185
0.604
0.705
5
375.559
204.350
0.202
0.335
0.782
0.893
6
381.403
206.096
0.147
0.203
0.520
0.619
7
365.179
199.746
0.292
0.362
0.770
0.854
8
380.162
208.226
0.155
0.207
0.433
0.514
average
results
375.001
203.400
0.169
0.284
0.606
0.702
stochastic
result
379.385
202.197
0.185
0.353
0.540
0.682
№ of steel
specimen
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Ascertainment of the Change of the Ductility in Corroded Steel Specimens by Experiment
Table 4 Results for group A – stress values
initially
weight
final
weight
elastic
stress
σel
plastic
stress
σy
strengthening
(ultimate) stress
σu
fracture
stress
σf
(g)
(g)
(MPa)
(MPa)
(MPa)
(MPa)
1
377.515
204.016
316.658
345.820
425.354
282.715
2
378.757
206.264
253.461
283.372
373.927
245.437
3
367.692
196.750
289.558
318.841
381.881
260.870
4
373.743
201.754
228.936
234.887
306.942
200.014
5
375.559
204.350
387.649
422.322
502.015
344.117
6
381.403
206.096
249.381
264.701
335.044
223.167
7
365.179
199.746
391.862
427.903
522.666
369.182
8
380.162
208.226
245.196
280.898
348.356
231.000
average
results
375.001
203.400
295.338
322.343
399.523
269.563
stochastic
result
379.385
202.197
317.846
345.524
413.913
289.916
№ of steel
specimen
Table 5 Results for group A – ratio values
ratio values
!
!
!
average results
1.1586
2.4750
4.1567
2.1361
3.5876
1.6795
stochastic result
1.2636
1.9313
3.6933
1.5285
2.9229
1.9123
Table 6 Results for group B – strain values
initially
weight
final
weight
elastic
strain
εel
plastic
strain
εy
strengthening
strain
εu
fracture
strain
εf
(g)
(g)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
9
390.766
327.218
0.278
0.691
1.290
1.549
10
387.051
318.439
0.270
0.757
1.520
1.827
11
387.295
320.102
0.262
0.666
1.293
1.567
12
385.645
318.705
0.189
0.602
1.591
1.916
13
384.358
315.342
0.263
0.647
1.722
2.031
14
380.845
326.442
0.248
0.668
1.336
1.678
15
388.184
341.005
0.233
0.657
1.858
2.202
16
386.449
332.147
0.241
0.656
1.647
1.922
average
results
386.324
324.925
0.248
0.668
1.532
1.836
stochastic
result
383.844
323.219
0.241
0.663
1.586
1.891
№ of steel
specimen
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Table 7 Results for group B – stress values
initially
weight
final
weight
elastic
stress
σel
plastic
stress
σy
strengthening
(ultimate) stress
σu
fracture
stress
σf
(g)
(g)
(MPa)
(MPa)
(MPa)
(MPa)
9
390.766
327.218
326.650
372.966
436.589
295.871
10
387.051
318.439
350.962
377.840
437.708
290.284
11
387.295
320.102
349.845
410.079
469.871
314.056
12
385.645
318.705
351.552
368.416
455.750
298.899
13
384.358
315.342
326.809
331.522
413.039
274.232
14
380.845
326.442
301.625
366.499
432.980
281.079
15
388.184
341.005
365.616
360.167
442.127
292.272
16
386.449
332.147
358.474
352.215
438.593
296.102
average
results
386.324
324.925
341.442
367.463
440.832
292.849
stochastic
result
383.844
323.219
358.920
366.420
450.913
284.414
№ of steel
specimens
Table 8 Results for group B – ratio values
ratio values
!
!
!
average results
1.1986
2.7488
7.4038
2.2933
6.1769
2.6935
stochastic result
1.1922
2.8530
7.8530
2.3930
6.5868
2.7525
Figure 8 Results from experiment (group A)
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Ascertainment of the Change of the Ductility in Corroded Steel Specimens by Experiment
Figure 9 Results from experiment (group B)
5. CONCLUSION
Our experimental results unambiguously established that there was a change in ductility. When
corrosion is at an early stage, the change in ductility is small, but with the advancement of
corrosion development in steel bearing elements, the change in ductility becomes sensitive. In
view of the strength, there is a slight (minor) change which is obviously due to the corrosive
effect. The fact that, as corrosive development progresses, the corresponding ductility begins
to decrease, it means that there is a correlation between the development of corrosion in a steel
bearing element and its ductile qualities. We find that steel elements with corrosion are unable
to undergo significant plastic deformations before tearing. It is known that the amount of
carbon (C) in a steel spill affects directly the ductility, but in our case, with increasing
corrosion, the ductility is reduced. This fact unambiguously supports the thesis that when
corrosion enters the steel elements, it directly influences the basic elastic-plastic properties,
from the ductile material, becomes a brittle material, although with the look of the chart of
ductile material (sometimes).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research received is funding by “Hyosel” Ltd., Sofia, Bulgaria.
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