Tribo-corrosion mechanisms of stainless steel in soft drinks

Tribo-corrosion mechanisms of 316L Stainless Steel in slurries containing common household soft drinks have been studied through investigating the micro-abrasion–corrosion performance using a ball and disk apparatus which has been modified to measure the in situ corrosion current during the abrasion process. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of pH and solution viscosity on the micro-abrasion–corrosion performance of the material. 316L Stainless Steel was selected because it is commonly used as a dental replacement material. This is an important area of work as the use of steel retainers as well as other stainless steel dental replacements is still widespread and the effectiveness of these devices will be determined by their tribological and tribo-corrosion performance. Additionally, an attempt has been made to investigate the importance of the pH and viscosity variables on the tribo-corrosive synergism, wastage and mechanism maps.