A Comparative Analysis of Corrosion Product Removal Methods for Ferrous Fracture Surfaces

A commonly encountered challenge in performing fractography in failure analyses is the prevalence of corroded fracture surfaces. The failure analyst is equipped with an industry accepted toolkit for removing corrosion products but must strike a balance between cleanliness and preservation of fractographic features. This talk will compare the efficacy of common cleaning methods employed in failure analysis for removing corrosion products from steel and evaluate them against the use of a chelating rust remover, such as Evapo-Rust®, to understand if commercially available chelating rust removers should be added to the failure analyst’s toolkit. The efficacy and limitations of each method will be evaluated by comparing SEM fractographs before being corroded and after corrosion removal to understand to what extent each method alters fractographic features and how effective it is at removing corrosion products.