Abstract
Microalloyed steels have been widely used in many applications, particularly in car bodies and other engineering parts. This is because these steels are characterized by their high strength and high ductility. The combination of strength and ductility for these steels are usually resulting from the very fine grained microstructure. In the current work, the effects of grain refinement on the corrosion resistance property of BSK 46 microalloyed steel in 1N H2SO4 solution under different microstructural conditions were reported. The repeated quenching of the BSK 46 steels was found to increase the refining in their microstructures. Effects of changing temperature on the corrosion properties of the steel were also investigated at three different temperatures namely, 20 degrees C, 30 degrees C and 40 degrees C. The corrosion behaviour of the steel was investigated using galvanostatic polarization. It was found that repeating the quenching of steel, grains become finer and corrosion rate increases suggesting that a compromise has to strike between high mechanical property and corrosion rate.