Corrosion Behavior of SMA490BW Steel and Welded Joints for High-Speed Trains in Atmospheric Environments

Abstract

Currently, high-speed trains work under various atmospheric environments, and the bogie as a key component suffers serious corrosion. To investigate the corrosion behavior of bogies in industrial atmospheric environments, the periodic immersion wet/dry cyclic corrosion test for SMA490BW steel and automatic metal active gas (MAG) welded joints used for bogies was conducted in the present work. Corrosion weight loss rate, structure, and composition of rust layers as well as electrochemistry parameters were investigated. The results showed that the corrosion weight loss rate decreased with increasing corrosion time; furthermore, the corrosion weight loss rate of the welded joints was lower than that of SMA490BW steel. The XRD results showed that the rust layers formed on SMA490BW steel and its welded joints were mainly composed of α-FeOOH, γ-FeOOH, Fe2O3, and Fe3O4. The observation of surface morphology indicated that the rust layers of the welded joints were much denser and had a much finer microstructure compared with those of SMA490BW steel. After corrosion for 150 h, the corrosion potential of the welded joints with rust layers was higher than that of SMA490BW steel. In short, the welded joints exhibited better corrosion resistance than SMA490BW steel because of the higher content of alloy elements, as shown in this work.