Corrosion Engineering, Science and Technology

The International Journal of Corrosion Processes and Corrosion Control

ISSN: 1478-422X (Print) 1743-2782 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ycst20

The galvanic effect of high-strength weathering

steel welded joints and its influence on corrosion
resistance

Chen Huang, Feng Huang, Hai-Xia Liu, Qian Hu & Jing Liu

To cite this article: Chen Huang, Feng Huang, Hai-Xia Liu, Qian Hu & Jing Liu (2019):
The galvanic effect of high-strength weathering steel welded joints and its influence
on corrosion resistance, Corrosion Engineering, Science and Technology, DOI:
10.1080/1478422X.2019.1636484

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1478422X.2019.1636484

Published online: 01 Jul 2019.

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CORROSION ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/1478422X.2019.1636484

The galvanic effect of high-strength weathering steel welded joints and its
influence on corrosion resistance
Chen Huang, Feng Huang, Hai-Xia Liu, Qian Hu and Jing Liu
State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The influence of the galvanic effects on the welded joints of A710 high-strength weathering steel with Received 14 April 2019
two different weld metals (80Ni1-H4 and WER70) under a simulated marine atmospheric environment Accepted 23 June 2019
was investigated by employing Scanning Kelvin Probe (SKP), galvanic current measurements, cyclic
KEYWORDS
wet/dry accelerated corrosion testing, Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) and A710 steel; welded joints;
other approaches. The results indicate that the average galvanic currents for the HAZ-BM and HAZ- galvanic corrosion; SKP
WM couples of the two welded joints initially decreased and then gradually stabilised, which is
related to the formation of a stable rust layer. In addition, the WER70 welded joints presented a
higher average corrosion rate than for the 80Ni1-H4 welded joints. The significant galvanic effect of
the WER70 welded joints and the formation of a compact rust layer are the dominant effects during
the initial and later corrosion stages, respectively.

Introduction
Welding processes are a very important and inevitable
aspect of the application of weathering steels. Owing to
the influence of welding thermal cycle and different welding
materials, the structures and chemical compositions of
weathering steel welded joints are extremely inhomo-
geneous. This could significantly deteriorate the structural
integrity of the joints and result in probable changes to
the corrosion resistance [1–3]. In recent years, an increasing
number of researchers have focused their attention on the
corrosion behaviour of weathering steel welded joints.
Yue-Lin et al. [3] found that the welded joint of a low car-
bon Cu–P–Cr weathering steel prepared using electric slag
pressure welding exhibited a lower corrosion resistance
than the base steel. Xie et al. [4] studied the corrosion
behaviour of SMA490BW weathering steel welded joints
and noted that automatic Metal Active Gas (MAG) arc
welded joints showed higher corrosion resistances compared
with manual MAG welded joints. Gong et al. [5] also
confirmed that the welded joints from 09CuPCrNi weather-
ing steel made using shielded metal arc welding with a
J502NiCrCu welding wire had a lower corrosion rate than
the base metal at later stages. Therefore, welded joints do
not necessarily have deteriorated corrosion resistances,
and a reasonable welding process and welding materials
can even lead to improvements.
Most studies have shown that the inhomogeneity of the
microstructure and chemical composition of welded joints
are the primary reasons for a deteriorated corrosion resist-
ance [6–8], which may cause localised corrosion, such as
galvanic corrosion, stress corrosion and others [9–12].
The characteristics of localised corrosion include a
high local corrosion rate, small structural loss rate and
strong concealment, which can lead to the early cata-
strophic failure of engineered structures and generate
huge economic losses. Statistically, galvanic corrosion is
the most common type of failure mode for welded joints
[13,14]. Therefore, there has been increasing attention
given to these joints, especially considering their influen-
tial factors.
Zhang et al. [15] discovered that the galvanic corrosion
rates for different coupling pairs were positively correlated
with the potential difference between the two different
metals. Arya et al. [16] also noted that the corrosion cur-
rent increased with the increasing cathode/anode area
ratio, and, for a given ratio, the greater the separation dis-
tance between the anode and cathode, the smaller the cur-
rent density. Varela et al. [17] considered that the
corrosion current for carbon steel/stainless steel coupling
was not positively correlated with temperature, especially
when around 100°C. However, limited studies have been
done with respect to the galvanic corrosion kinetics of
weathering steel welded joints and its effect on corrosion
resistance, which have a direct impact on the service safety
of weathering steel in marine environments. In addition,
there is limited research on the galvanic corrosion kinetics
of weathering steel made with different welding processes
and filler wires.
Here, the high-strength weathering steel denoted as A710
steel was chosen as the base metal due to its excellent mech-
anical properties and weldability, and because it is expected
to be widely applied in marine engineering. The main objec-
tive of this work is to investigate the galvanic corrosion kin-
etics of A710 steel with different filler wires and welding
processes. The influences on the corrosion resistance for
these welded joints were investigated by employing Scan-
ning Kelvin Probe (SKP), dry/wet cycling galvanic current
measurements, electrochemical technologies, Field-Emission
Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) and others. This
work provides a theoretical basis and data accumulation
for the application of A710 steel in marine atmospheric
environments.

CONTACT Feng Huang huangfeng@wust.edu.cn State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan,
Hubei 430081, People’s Republic of China
© 2019 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining Published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Institute
2 C. HUANG ET AL.

Experimental procedures Table 2. The welding parameters.

Welded joint D (mm) I (A) U(V) V (cm min−1) HI (J mm−1)
Tested material and welding procedure 80Ni1-H4 φ1.6 240–260 28–30 23 2500
WER70 φ1.2 250–270 28–30 29 1500
The A710 high-strength weathering steel employed in this
research was supplied by the Wuhan Iron and Steel Cor-
poration, and two different filler wires (80Ni1-H4 and
WER70) were used for the welded joints and were created Table 3. The mechanical properties of the A710 weathering steel and its welded
using a gas shielded arc process. The chemical compo- joints.
sitions of the material and the welding parameters are R (MPa) Rm (MPa) A (%) Z (%)
shown in Tables 1 and 2, respectively, while Table 3 sum- A710 540 640 24 77
marises the mechanical properties of the base metal and 80Ni1-H4 / 668 / 80
WER70 / 654 / 78
the welded joints.
Based on the ASTM A710/A710M-2013 standard, the
yield and tensile strengths of the A710 steel meet the specified with distilled water and alcohol and then subjected to cyclic
standards (Table 3). During tensile testing, the fracture sites wet/dry accelerated corrosion testing. The cyclic period was
of the two welded joints were located in the base metal 60 min including immersion into a 3.5 wt-% NaCl solution
(A710 steel). The tensile strengths of the two welded joints at 40 ± 1°C for 12 min and drying at 42 ± 1°C with 60 ± 2%
were both higher than the lower yield strength (Rel) of the Relative Humidity for 48 min. The test procedure consisted
base metal, and the section shrinkage (Z ) was also larger of: (i) weighing the initial samples (60 × 40 × 5 mm); (ii)
than the base metal (Table 3). This shows that the tensile removing the samples after corroding for 1, 2, 3, 6, 12
test results for the two welded joints are qualified. In addition, and 24 days; (iii) washing the samples with deionised
due to the differences in the used filler wires, the welded joints water to prevent the accumulation of progressive salt; (iv)
are separately denoted as the 80Ni1-H4 and WER70 welded removing the rust from the samples in a solution of
joints. It is noted that all samples cut from the welded joints 500 mL hydrochloric acid + 500 mL distilled water + 3.5 g
included the base metal and the weld metal with an area ratio hexamine, where the blank sample was used to correct for
of approximately 4:1. defects and (v) re-weighing the samples after drying. The
corrosion rates of the samples were determined by consider-
ing the total weight loss.
Microstructure analysis
The two welded joint specimens for the A710 steel were wet
ground with silicon carbide papers up to a 1200 grit, and then Morphology observations and composition analysis of
polishing in 6 and 1 μm diamond suspensions. After that, the the rust layers
specimens were etched with 4% nital (4 mL nitric acid + The cross-section morphologies of the rust layers (corrosion
96 mL ethyl alcohol). The surfaces were then examined products) at different corrosion times were observed in the
under an optical microscope. locations of the WM by using an FE-SEM (Nova400 Nano
SEM). The corrosion products taken from the coupon surface
at different corrosion times were ground into fine powders
Volta potential distribution measurements
and were all equalised to have the same mass. Then X-ray
The Volta potential distributions for different regions of the diffraction (XRD; Shimadzu XRD-6000 diffractometer with
two A710 weathering steel welded joints were measured Co Kα radiation) was used for the phase composition analysis
using a VersaSCAN electrochemical workstation with the of the rust layers.
SKP technique. A tungsten wire probe with a diameter of
100 μm was invoked as the needle, whose amplitude and fre-
quency were 30 μm and 1 kHz, respectively. The test area Morphology observations for the welded joints after
included the base metal (BM), the heat affected zone (HAZ) removing corrosion products
and the weld metal (WM), and was 18 000 × 4000 μm with A schematic of the sample setup used for the measurements
a step size of 100 μm both in the X- and Y-directions, as illus- to quantitatively determine the depth differences in the two
trated in Figure 1. The speed was set to 100 μm s−1, and the welded joints before and after the corrosion testing is shown
average distance between the tip and the coupon was approxi- in Figure 2. The red zone on the left side of the sample is
mately 100 μm during the testing. the un-corroded area, which was covered with a water-
resistant silica gel to prevent corrosion during the immer-
sion stage, and the right side is the corroded area. The
Cyclic wet/dry accelerated corrosion testing
un-corroded area was the reference plane used for the cor-
After being sequentially ground by 180, 240, 400, 600, and rosion zone. After 8 days of alternating in the wet–dry mar-
800 grit silicon carbide abrasive papers, the two different ine environment, a topographic analysis was performed
welded joints using the A710 weathering steel were rinsed using a VHX-5000 stereo-microscope for the samples.

Table 1. Chemical composition of the materials used (wt-%).

C Si Mn P S Ni Cr Cu Mo Nb
A710 0.045 0.29 0.63 0.009 0.005 1.23 0.78 1.01 0.19 0.025
80Ni1-H4 0.005 0.32 1.20 0.014 0.009 0.93 0.15 0.35 / /
WER70 0.06 0.49 1.81 0.01 0.005 0.62 0.26 0.26 / /

Figure 1. The test area for the A710 weathering steel welded joints: (a) WER70
welded joint and (b) 80Ni1-H4 welded joint.
Open Circuit Potential measurements
The open circuit potential (OCP) measurements for different
regions (BM, HAZ and WM) of two welded joints were con-
ducted using an Auto Lab PGSTAT204 electrochemical
workstation with platinum as the counter electrode, a KCl-
saturated calomel electrode (SCE) as the reference electrode,
the different regions (BM, HAZ and WM) as the working
electrode and a 3.5 wt-% NaCl solution as the electrolyte.
The measurement time for the OCP was 5400 s.
Galvanic current measurements
During the cyclic wet/dry accelerated corrosion testing, the
galvanic current for the HAZ in the HAZ-BM and HAZ-
WM couples for the two A710 steel welded joints was con-
stantly measured using a CST500 Galvanic corrosion/elec-
trochemical noise measuring meter. The HAZ of the
welded joints was used as the working electrode I, the BM
or WM was used as the working electrode II, and the
KCl-SCE worked as the reference electrode. If the galvanic
current measured by the CST500 is positive, the working
electrode I is anodic; if not, the working electrode II is
cathodic. A schematic of the setup used to measure the gal-
vanic currents for the specimens is illustrated in Figure 3. It
is noted that the area ratios of BM, HAZ and WM were the
same as those for the cyclic wet/dry accelerated corrosion
tests, and the measurement time was 8 days, which included
192 cycles.
Figure 2. Schematic diagram of the sample to determine the depth differences
before and after the corrosion testing.
CORROSION ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 3
Figure 3. Schematic diagram used for the galvanic current measurement and of
the specimen (a: HAZ-WM couple; b: HAZ-BM couple).
Results
Microstructure of the two welded joints
Optical macrographs of the WER70 and the 80Ni1-H4 welded
joints are shown in Figure 4. The BM of these welded joints
(Figure 4a) is primarily made up of relatively large ferrite
and granular bainite with good uniformity. The WM of the
WER70 welded joint (Figure 4c) mainly consists of ferrite wid-
mannstatten and a lesser amount of bainite. For the 80Ni1-H4
welded joint, the WM mainly consists of acicular and relatively
large ferrite with small amounts of bainite (Figure 4e). The
similarities in both the welded joints in the WM consist of
the inhomogeneous structure and the large grains.
The HAZ in the WER70 welded joint (Figure 4b) is mainly
composed of relatively large ferrite and small amounts of
granular bainite, which shows different grain sizes. However,
the HAZ of the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint (Figure 4d) mainly
consists of granular bainite and small amounts of large ferrite
with different grain sizes. This means that the microstructures
have obvious variations for the different regions of the two
welded joints.
Potential distribution of the two welded joints
The distributions of the Volta potential for the two welded
joints measured via Kelvin probe are shown in Figures 5
and 6. From Figure 5(a), we see that the potential for differ-
ent regions of the WER70 welded joint progressively
decreased in the order of BM, HAZ and WM. The potential
differences with a distance of Y = 2.4 mm between the HAZ
and BM were approximately 160 mV for the HAZ and
100 mV for the MW, as shown in Figure 5(b). However,
the ranked potentials for the different regions of the
80Ni1-H4 welded joint from largest to smallest are the
4 C. HUANG ET AL.
Figure 4. Microstructure morphologies: WER70 welded joint for (a) BM, (b) HAZ and (c) WM; and the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint for (d) HAZ and (e) WM.
HAZ, BM and WM (Figure 6a). Furthermore, the potential
differences between the HAZ and BM, and the HAZ and
WM for the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint were approximately
20 and 80 mV, respectively. The potential varied with dis-
tance at Y = 2.4 mm (Figure 6b) and was much lower
than that for the WER70 welded joint. According to the
potential differences of the three regions, the WER70
welded joint meets the thermodynamic conditions for galva-
nic corrosion to occur.
As is well known, there is a positive correlation between
the natural corrosion potential and the Volta potential, as
seen in Equation (1) [18]. For the same metal, a smaller
Volta potential leads to a lower natural corrosion potential.
Ecorr = Dw + A
where Ecorr is the natural corrosion potential (mV), Δϕ is the
Volta potential (mV) and A is a constant.
To accurately analyse the variations in the natural cor-
rosion potential, the OCPs for different regions (BM, HAZ
and WM) of the two welded joints in a 3.5 wt-% NaCl sol-
ution were measured, as shown in Figure 7. It is clearly
seen that in the initial immersion stage, the OCPs for the
different regions shift negatively, and with the continued
corrosion time, the OCP values tend to gradually stabilise.
Furthermore, after stabilisation, the OCPs of the 80Ni1-H4
welded joints decrease in the order BM, HAZ and WM,
whereas the OCPs for the WER70 welded joints reduce as
HAZ, BM and WM. These results are consistent with the
SKP results from the two welded joints (Figures 5 and 6),
indicating that there could be differences in the corrosion ten-
dency between different areas of the two welded joints.
The galvanic current for the two welded joints
To intuitively and quantitatively analyse the galvanic cor-
rosion behaviour of the two A710 weathering steel welded
(1) joints, the galvanic currents for the HAZ-BM and HAZ-
WM couples were measured, as shown in Figure 8. For the
WER70 welded joint, the galvanic current of the HAZ-BM
couple has a positive value (Figure 8a), while the HAZ-WM
couple is negative (Figure 8b). This indicates that the HAZ
is an anode against the BM, while the WM plays the role of
the anode against the HAZ. For the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint,
the galvanic currents for the HAZ-BM and HAZ-BM couples
are both negative (Figure 8c and d), indicating that the HAZ
acts as the anode to both the BM and WM.

Figure 5. The SKP results (mV) for the WER70 welded joint: (a) the area scan for the potential difference and (b) variations in the potential with distance at Y =
2.4 mm.
It is noted that every cycle includes the immersion and
drying stages, but the galvanic currents measured in the dry-
ing stage are unstable. Therefore, the average galvanic current
values for the couples in the immersion stage as a function of
the number of wet/dry cycles are exhibited in Figure 9. It is
observed that the average change in the galvanic currents
for the HAZ-BM and HAZ-WM couples of the two welded
joints with the number of wet/dry cycles can be divided
into two stages: a declining stage and a stabilizing stage.
Further observations suggest there is a transition point corre-
sponding to approximately 6 days between the first stage and
the second stage. After the transition point, the galvanic cur-
rents for both welded joints became lower and remained
nearly stable. This could be related to the formation and
CORROSION ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 5
stability of rust layers, which is discussed in the following
sections.
Average corrosion rates for the two welded joints
Figure 10 shows the average corrosion rates for the two
different A710 weathering steel welded joints as functions
of the wet/dry cycle time. Over the entire corrosion process,
the corrosion rate of the WER70 welded joint is always
much larger than that of the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint at
the same corrosion time. The average corrosion rate versus
the corrosion testing time for both joints presents the same
variation trend as decreasing with longer corrosion times.
Furthermore, it can be seen that the entire corrosion
6 C. HUANG ET AL.
Figure 6. The SKP results (mv) for the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint: (a) the area scan for the potential difference and (b) variations in the potential with distance at Y =
2.4 mm.
process can be divided into two stages: a faster downward
trend for the first stage and a slower downward trend for
the second stage. The transition points for these stages are
at approximately 6 days. According to the literature [19–
21], the higher corrosion rate stage is related to the for-
mation process of the corrosion products, and the lower
corrosion rate is correspondingly attributed to the for-
mation of a stable rust layer.
Morphologies of the rust layers
The cross-sectional structure of the rust layers formed on the
two welded joints after the different corrosion cycles is shown
in Figure 13. On first and third days, the rust layers on these
two samples are loose and porous. On the 6th and 12th days,
a compact inner rust layer was formed, but some cracks par-
allel to the surface appeared on the WER70 welded joint. In
particular, at the 24th day, the WER70 welded joint still
had some small cracks connecting the outer rust layer and
the substrate, whereas there were no tiny cracks observed
on the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint.
Usually, the compact inner rust layer can improve the cor-
rosion resistance by hindering the invasion of corrosive ions
to the substrate surface. Thus, after 6 days of the wet/dry cor-
rosion, the barrier properties of the rust layers were
improved, which contributed to the slowing trend in the
second stage, as shown in Figure 11. Furthermore, it was
observed that the rust layer of the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint
was more compact than that for the WER70 welded joint
given the same cycle time.

Figure 7. The OCPs for the different regions as functions of time.
Composition of the powdered rust
The composition of the rust layers formed on the two
welded joints was analysed using XRD, as shown in Figure
12. The rust layers for both welded joints are quite similar
after 3, 12 and 24 days, and are mainly composed of α-
FeOOH, γ-FeOOH and Fe3O4. According to Ref. [18],
the ratio of α to γ* is an important index of the rust
layer protection performance, where α represents the con-
tent of α-FeOOH and the γ* is the total content of the γ-
FeOOH and Fe3O4 or Fe2O3. The greater the α/γ* value is,
Figure 8. The galvanic currents for the HAZ-BM and HAZ-WM couples in the WER70 welded joint (a, b) and the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint (c, d) as functions of the
number of wet/dry cycles.
CORROSION ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 7
the more stable the rust layer is and the better its barrier
effect.
The values of α and α/γ* are shown in Table 4 to quanti-
tatively compare the relative amounts of these phases in the
rust layers. With the increase of the corrosion time, the rela-
tive amounts of α-FeOOH and the α/γ* values increase for
both welded joints. Furthermore, the values of α and α/γ*
for the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint are much larger than those
of the WER70 welded joint, especially during the second cor-
rosion stage.
Morphologies of two welded joints after removing the
rust layers
Figure 13 provides 3D topographic images that show the cor-
rosion morphologies of the two welded joints with galvanic
interactions as well as the depth variation with distance for
Y = 500 μm. It can be seen that the depth differences between
the un-corroded and corroded regions for different areas in
the WER70 welded joint exhibit a larger Δdmax in the WM
at 76 μm than that of the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint at a Δdmax
of 39 μm. Furthermore, for the corroded regions, the depth
in the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint was much shallower than for
the WER70 welded joint. This indicates that there was a sig-
nificant galvanic effect between the different areas taking
place during the wet/dry cyclic immersion of the WER70
welded joint.
8 C. HUANG ET AL.
Figure 9. The average galvanic currents for the HAZ-BM and HAZ-WM couples
in the WER70 welded joint (a) and 80Ni1-H4 welded joint (b) as functions of the
number of wet/dry cycles.
Discussion
Behaviours of the galvanic corrosion kinetics for the
two welded joints
In a simplified sense, galvanic corrosion refers to the local
corrosion of different metals with different corrosion poten-
tials in the same corrosive medium after contact or connec-
tion [22]. However, broadly speaking, a microgalvanic
corrosion cell can also be formed due to local differences in
the electrochemical activity of the same metal, leading to
Figure 10. The average corrosion rates for the two welded joints as functions of
the corrosion time.
preferential local corrosion with high electrochemical activi-
ties [23]. Numerous studies have shown that the galvanic cor-
rosion effects are dominated by the potential difference [15],
cathode–anode area ratio [16], environmental medium [17]
and others.
As a result, the same area ratios were applied in the cyclic
wet/dry accelerated corrosion testing processing for the
WER70 and 80Ni1-H4 welding joints. Different degrees of
galvanic corrosion occurred for the two welded joints (Figure
13), where ‘large cathode and small anode’ structures (HAZ
and WM as the anode, BM as the cathode) were formed in
the WER70 welded joint, whereas ‘small cathode and large
anode’ structures (BM and WM as the anode, HAZ as the
cathode) were formed in the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint (Figures
8 and 9). The microstructures for the local regions (HAZ,
WM and BM) of the welded joints (Figure 4) caused by the
different filler wires and welding processes also resulted in
their different electrochemical activities (Figure 7). The larger
the potential differences between the different regions
(Figures 5 and 6) were responsible for a more serious galvanic
corrosion of the WER70 welded joint (Figure 13).
Further analysis found that the evolution process for the
average galvanic currents in the HAZ for the HAZ-BM and
HAZ-WM couples of the two welded joints as a function of
the number of cycles can be divided into two stages: initial
decline and gradual stabilisation (Figures 8 and 9). The tran-
sition point was at approximately 6 days, which is related to
the formation of steady corrosion products on the welded
joints, as also observed in the literature [24]. The galvanic
effect between different regions in the two welded joints was
continuously inhibited due to the coverage of corrosion pro-
ducts on the substrate [24], which were responsible for
decreases in the galvanic currents in the HAZ-BM and
HAZ-WM couples at the initial corrosion stage (Figure 8).
During the later corrosion stage, the rust layer became increas-
ingly compact with the extended corrosion time, which signifi-
cantly improved the shielding effect of the rust layer on the
steel substrate. Therefore, the dense rust layer greatly wea-
kened the galvanic effect of the welded joints and led to a wea-
kened and gradually stabilised galvanic current (Figure 9) [25].
The influence of galvanic effect of the welded joints
on its corrosion resistance
The galvanic effect between the different areas of the welded
joints affected its corrosion resistance [26,27]. In this work,
the average corrosion rate of the WER70 welded joint was sig-
nificantly higher than that of the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint
given the same corrosion time. Changes in the corrosion
rate were also divided into two stages of decline and stabilis-
ation, where the turning point was at approximately 6 days
(Figure 10). This is almost identical to the observed galvanic
current change law. This similarity might be related to the
galvanic effect and the formation of a compact rust layer on
the two welded joints.
In the initial corrosion stage (0–6 days), a discontinuous,
thin and loose corrosion product was formed on the surface
of both welded joints, which provided a weak shielding
effect for the substrate (Figure 11). The aggressive ions
(such as Cl–) in the solution could still directly penetrate to
the surface of the substrate through the rust layer. However,
due to the partial coverage of the corrosion product, the active
area of the electrode was reduced, causing the average

Figure 11. Cross-sectional morphological evolution of the rust layers formed on the A710 weathering steel welded joints.
Figure 12. XRD patterns for the corrosion products formed on the two steel
welded joints at different wet/dry cycle times: (a) WER70 and (b) 80Ni1-H4
welded joints.
corrosion rate to decrease with the prolonged corrosion time.
At the same time, the galvanic effect between different regions
in the two welded joints decreased gradually with the cor-
rosion time (Figures 8 and 9), which could also result in a
decrease of the corrosion rate of the welded joints (Figure
10). However, due to the weak shielding performance of the
rust layer during the initial stage, the influence of the galvanic
effect on the overall corrosion resistance of the two welded
joints was dominant, and the resulting corrosion rate of the
CORROSION ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 9
Table 4. The values of α and α/γ* after 3, 12 and 24 days.
WER70 welded joint 80Ni1-H4 welded joint
α-FeOOH α/γ* α-FeOOH α/γ*
3d 4.3 0.045 10 0.111
12d 16.5 0.198 34.5 0.527
24d 22.7 0.294 52.1 1.088
WER70 welded joint was greater than that of the 80Ni1-H4
welding joint.
In the later corrosion stage (6–24 days), as the corrosion
time progressed, the α-FeOOH content in the rust layer of
the two welded joints increased (Table 4), and a dense
inner rust layer formed on the substrate (Figure 11). This
led to a significant improvement in the shielding effect of
the rust layer. In addition, the formation of the dense rust
layer caused the galvanic effect of the two welded joints to
greatly weaken and gradually vanish [25]. Therefore, the
influence of the galvanic effect on the corrosion resistance
of the welded joints could be virtually neglected. Thus the
influence of the rust layer shielding effect on the corrosion
resistance of the welded joints was dominant. However, the
thickness and compactness of the rust layer in the 80Ni1-
H4 welded joint were obviously superior to those of the
WER70 welded joint (Figure 11). Therefore, the corrosion
rate of the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint in the later stages was
lower than that of the WER70 welded joint (Figure 10).
And as mentioned in previous paragraph, differences in the
microstructures and chemical composition resulted in the
‘small cathode and large anode’ structures of the 80Ni1-H4
welded joint, which are more conducive to practical engineer-
ing applications.
Conclusion
(1) Differences in the microstructures and chemical compo-
sition led to varying degrees of the galvanic effect
between the different regions of two A710 steel welded
joints. There was a more serious galvanic effect between
the different regions during the wet/dry cyclic immersion
for the WER70 welded joint compared with the 80Ni1-
H4 welded joint.
(2) Owing to the initial galvanic effect and the inhibition of
the denser rust layer on the galvanic interactions,
10 C. HUANG ET AL.

Figure 13. Depth profile at the surface of the A710 weathering steel welded joints after 8 days of wet/dry alternating in a marine environment: WER70 welded joint
for (a) BM, (b) HAZ and (c) WM; and 80Ni1-H4 welded joint for (d) BM, (e) HAZ and (f) WM.

variations in the average galvanic current for the

HAZ-BM and HAZ-WM couples in the two welded
joints as functions of the number of wet/dry cycles
were divided into two stages: initial decline and gradual
stabilisation.
(3) The corrosion resistance of the 80Ni1-H4 welded joint
was superior to that of the WER70 welded joint. This
is mainly due to the serious galvanic corrosion effect in
the WER70 welded joint at the initial corrosion stage
and the more compact rust layer of the 80Ni1-H4 welded
joint in the middle and later corrosion stages. In addition,
the ‘small cathode and large anode’ structures of the
80Ni1-H4 welded joint are more conducive to practical
engineering applications.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of China (No:
2017YFB0304801) and the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (No: 51871172).
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