As the usage of Titanium and its alloys expands from the traditional market, alloy development is providing new materials with tailored corrosion resistance and mechanical properties for use in various corrosive environments. The corrosion resistance of titanium and its alloys is due to the presence of a thin, tenacious passive layer and the corrosion behaviour has been widely studied. Much less is known about the performance of Ti and its alloys in tribo-corrosion conditions, where
corrosion occurs in association with a mechanical degradation process. This paper studies the corrosion performance of commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) and three alloys in two tribo-corrosion situations (1) erosion-corrosion, where the wear is due to impacting solids in a liquid medium and (2) cavitation-corrosion, where the wear is due to impacting micro-jets formed by imploding vapour bubbles. The erosion-corrosion and cavitation-corrosion characteristics of each material at 18oC and
50oC were assessed using an impinging jet and vibratory cavitation apparatus respectively. The tests were performed in a 3.5% NaCl saline solution. A series of experiments was conducted to determine the electrochemical corrosion characteristics of the materials. It has been shown that exposure to erosion-corrosion causes disruption of the passive film on Ti and active corrosion occurs. In contrast, only CP-Ti became active when the materials were exposed to a cavitating liquid. The role of corrosion in the overall material degradation under erosion-corrosion and cavitation-corrosion is discussed in this paper.
Keywords: corrosion, erosion, synergy, seawater, impingement.