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International audienceThe influence of surface preparation on the stress and adhesion of oxide scales formed on the ferritic stainless steel AISI 441 was studied. Steel coupons were surface-finished to different degrees of surface roughness from 400-grit SiC through to 1-micron diamond, and were also electropolished to remove the work hardened surface. Initial metal roughness was measured by optical profilometry. Oxidation was carried out at 800 degrees C under synthetic air for 100 h. Oxide residual stress was derived from the Raman shift of the main chromia line, and adhesion of oxide scales was quantitatively obtained using forced spallation by tensile straining. The results show that surface hardening is the most influential factor on adhesion, with the high dislocation-containing mirror-polished samples exhibiting the lowest adhesion energy (similar to 4 J m(-2)), and the electropolished samples with non-mechanically affected surface exhibiting the highest adhesion energy (17 J m(-2)). Recrystallisation of the subsurface zone during heating to the oxidation temperature is thought to be the most influential factor reducing scale adhesi

A micro-tensile testing has been developed to investigate the adhesion behaviour of the oxide scale thermally grown on AISI 441 stainless steel sheet oxidised at 800 °C in different atmospheres - synthetic air and water vapour. In the test, a sample was placed in a tensile testing machine sitting in the chamber of a scanning electron microscope at room temperature. Evolution of the failure of the oxide scale was monitored in function of the imposed strain. It was found that the scale formed on steel oxidised in synthetic air exhibited the drastically lower spallation ratio in function of strain comparing to the scale on steel oxidised in 20 %v/v H2O/N2. For the sample oxidised in water vapour, it was clearly observed that the scale was primarily failed by the crack perpendicular to the tensile loading direction, followed by the spallation due to the compressive stress generated by the Poisson effect. After the test, precipitates rich in Nb, Si, and possibly Ti were observed at the internal interface between scale and steel substrate. For the oxidised samples that the final polishing direction paralleled to the main sample axis, the strain provoking the first spallation of the samples oxidised in synthetic air and 20%H2O/N2 were 6.23 and 3.52 % respectively. The theoretical model was developed in our previous work to quantify the mechanical adhesion energy. These values were 357 and 68 J.m–2 for the steels oxidised in synthetic air and 20%H2O/N2 respectively.