• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.250-254
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• 2003

In this study, the IR drop theory was adopted to explain the initiation of crevice corrosion in the framework of IR drop in crevice electrolyte. Furthermore, the electrochemical polarization was measured to study the mechanism of crevice corrosion for type STS430 stainless steel. lest method adopts under condition that the size of specimen is $10\times20\times5mm,\;in\;1N\;H_2SO_4+0.1N\;NaCl$ solution, and the artificial crevice gap sizes are three kinds, the Micro capillary tube size is inner diameter 0.04 mm, outer diameter 0.08 mm. Crevice corrosion is measured under the applied voltage of passivation potential -200mV/SCE, resulted from anodic potentio-dynamic polarization to the external surface along the crevice. The potential difference was measured by depth profile by Micro capillary tube which inserted in the crevice. The obtained results of this study showed that 1) As artificial crevice gap size became narrow, the current density was increased, whereas no crevice corrosion was found in the crevice gap size $3\times0.5\times16mm\;in\;1N\;H_2SO_4+0.1N\;NaCl\;solution\;at\;20^{\circ}C$ 2) potential of the crevice was about from -220 to -358mV which is lower than that of external surface potential of -200mV The results so far confirmes that the potential drop(so-called IR drop) in the crevice is one of the major mechanisms the process of crevice corrosion for 430 stainless steel.