Effect of different environmental parameters on pitting behavior of AISI type 316L stainless steel: Experimental studies and neural network modeling

AISI type 316L stainless steel was subjected to electrochemical polarization tests in an aqueous environment of varying chloride ion concentration (17,500–70,000 ppm), pH (1.23–5.0) and temperature (298–333 K). Values of critical pitting potentials (Epit) were determined from the polarization tests. Increasing concentration and temperature, and decreasing pH were found to decrease the Epit. Eighty values of Epit, at different chloride concentrations, pH and temperature were used to model the pitting corrosion behavior of type 316L stainless steel using the artificial neural network (ANN) approach. A good correlation between experimental and predicted data was obtained. The developed ANN model was employed to simulate the intricate inter-relationships between Epit and various environmental parameters in AISI type 316L stainless steel.