Effect of laser color marking on the corrosion performance of stainless steel Available to Purchase

With the continuous and rapid development of laser marking technology, the field of applications increases. In this work, the suitability of laser marking stainless steel is studied for writing product data on the outer surface of tubes during production. Generally, thermal oxidation of a stainless steel surface will deteriorate its pitting resistance and, even though corrosive media is usually inside the tubes, pitting attack from the outside can cause failures. Three commercial stainless steels, austenitic 316L (EN 1.4404 / UNS S31600) and duplex grades LDX 2101 (EN 1.4162 / UNS S32101) and 2304 (EN 1.4362, UNS S32304), were laser marked using two different parameter settings that resulted in two different oxide colors. The oxide composition and thickness were studied with glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GDOES) and the effect of surface appearance on the pitting corrosion resistance was determined using ASTM G150. It is shown that the oxide thickness affects the corrosion performance.