A Study on the Influence Regulation of Surface Integrity on the Corrosion Resistance of Hydrogen Production Reactor Material

Corrosion can hurt the quality and service life of a workpiece, which could create potential safety hazards. However, improving the workpiece’s surface integrity through surface treatment could improve the effect of corrosion resistance. To study the effect of surface integrity on the corrosion resistance of low-alloy steel for hydrogen reactors, electrolytic corrosion experiments were carried out on specimens that were processed using different grit sandpapers or using different shot peening pressures using a self-built electrolytic platform. The influence regulation of initial surface roughness and surface residual stress on the corrosion rate of the low-alloy steel for a hydrogen reactor under different lengths of corrosion time, surface roughness after corrosion, and the tensile property degradation of the specimens after 4 h of corrosion were analyzed, respectively. In this paper, based on experimental research, we obtain the influence regulation of the processing parameters on the corrosion resistance of low-alloy steel for hydrogen reactors and provide processing parameters that could improve the corrosion resistance of low-alloy steel, which guides the corrosion resistance processing of hydrogen production reactors. It was found through experiments that with an increase in the initial surface roughness of the specimens, the corrosion rate of the specimen tends to decrease with the increase in corrosion duration; the surface roughness of the specimen after corrosion first increases and then decreases with the increase in corrosion time; and the tensile strength of specimen with the initial surface roughness of Ra 0.168 μm is relative good after 4 h of corrosion. With the increase in residual compressive stress on the surface of the specimen, the corrosion rate of the specimen decreases with the increase in corrosion time; the surface roughness of the specimen after corrosion first increases and then decreases with the increase in corrosion time; and the tensile strength of specimen with the surface residual stress of −335.64 MPa is relative good after 4 h of corrosion.