Thermodynamic stability and reaction sequence for high temperature oxidation processes in steels

The grain boundary oxidation mechanism in hot rolled chromium – manganese steels during heat exposure at 700 °C was mathematically modeled. Given a fixed exposure time, the migration of the atomic species (iron, oxygen, chromium and manganese) has been calculated with the parabolic rate equation for diffusion. After each small time step, the data was transferred into the database ChemApp (GTT-Technologies, Germany) to calculate the oxide composition for each point in thermodynamic equilibrium. The concentration for each phase was illustrated in a phase map, similar to a cross section polish of the respective specimen. Total element concentration is shown as density plot to give a better comparison with experimental pictures from EDX or AES measurements. The obtained results are in good agreement with experimental data for alloyed steel samples with an element concentration below the critical concentration of protective oxide scale formation