Abstract

Austenitic stainless steels are widely used for various industrial, construction and biomedical application because of their high resistance to uniform corrosion and suitable mechanical properties. However, they are prone to local corrosion in aggressive halides environments. In contrast of corrosion resistance research in chloride containing environments, there have been few investigations into the effect of fluorides on passivity breakdown and pitting corrosion of stainless steels. This article focuses on the effect of fluoride added to chloride solution on corrosion resistance of AISI 316L stainless steel. Evaluation is based on results of exposition immersion tests performed in 0.9 % NaCl, 0.9 % NaCl + 0.05 % NaF and 0.9 % NaCl + 0. 5 % NaF solutions (42 days) and on results of cyclic potentiodynamic polarization tests performed in the same solutions.