thus, the whole basis for comparison between the two types of tests becomes unreal. Furthermore, it should be emphasized that besides the possible contribution of M~S surface inclusions to the lower pitting potentials observed on some specimens it is more likely that environmental factor variation (like variation of oxygen content even under N2 bubbling, or variation of stirring by that bubbling) could affect the results. Our experience la showed that full deaeration is difficult to achieve or control; on the other hand, one cannot expect to reach the "true" anodic behavior there, where oxygen still cathodically reacts resulting in more noble (and apparent) pitting potentials.Finally, potentiodynamic polarization techniques should be more cautiously used in order to achieve the best reproducibility with the appropriate potential scan rate.J. Degerbeck: The purpose of the study in the paper under discussion was to investigate the validity of different tests in predicting the relative corrosion resistance of stainless steels in a specific seawater environment. Among other things we found rather a good correlation between the minimum value of pitting potential and number of crevice attacks in the seawater; correlation coefficient was --0.83 for one of the tests.Dr. Grassiani's opinion in the above discussion is that it is unrealistic to compare the resistance to initiation of pitting to that of crevice corrosion, since crevice corrosion occurs at lower potentials than pitting. Against this I would raise the following objection:As there seem to be certain similarities between the mechanism of formation of pitting and crevice corrosion, 14,15 and as practical experience and the main impression from the literature indicate that it is not quite unrealistic to assume that the relative resistance of different steels to initiation of pitting is the same as their relative resistance to initiation of crevice corrosion, I cannot see why it is unrealistic to correlate crevice corrosion from field tests with pitting from laboratory tests. That crevice corrosion occurs at potentials lower than the pitting potential is irrelevant. Further, my opinion is that from a practical point of view, it does not matter what results you compare or correlate as long as the correlation is of value in predicting the corrosion resistance in the actual environment.In regard to the environmental factors mentioned I agree that they could affect pitting potential results. However, in our investigation we performed every trial in each of the tests exactly under the same conditions.I am fully aware that the potentiodynamic pitting potential tests used in the present investigation are not the "best" ones. What you gain in accuracy you normally lose in time. We preferred to make use of rather fast tests.