Abstract
The use of industrial boilers for steam generation at industrial level is carried out under high temperature conditions, generating potentials corrosive atmospheres composed by CO2, N2, O2 and H2O; causing the deterioration and wastage of steels mechanical properties in equipment, as well as large economic losses. In this research work, the high temperature corrosive behavior of ASTM A335 P92 steel exposed to a real combustion environment in a horizontal pirotubular boiler was evaluated. Through characterization techniques such as: X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-ray Dispersive Energy (EDX), the morphology of the oxide layer formed, and its corrosion products were obtained. For its part, the gravimetric technique was used to analyze the kinetic corrosion behavior of the alloy, due to the mass gain per unit area against the testing times 24, 48, 120, 240 and 360 h. These results lead to determinate the corrosion rate and the kinetic constant according to the oxide parabolic growth law. Finally, it is concluded that ASTM A335 P92 steel is an alloy of potential use in combustion environments, where it has shown an outstanding behaviour respect to cyclical thermal processes at high temperatures. However, the limitation of this study is represented in the short testing times.
