Oxidation of Ni–30Cr Alloy at Low Temperature and Low Oxygen Partial Pressure: Experimental Methods to Improve Kinetics Constants Determination

Ni–30Cr model alloy was used to study chromia-scale formation behaviour. During its formation the mass variation signal is weak and it is important to take specific care to measure oxidation kinetics by thermogravimetric analysis. Symmetrical design allows the determination of very small mass changes in compensating buoyancy effects and limiting measurement drift. The mass variation measurement comprises noise coming from different sources that affects the electronic signal. It must be minimised to improve accuracy. This involves keeping the room-temperature constant, strictly balancing the beam and minimising buoyancy effects. By this way it was possible to acquire kinetics and to measured rate constants, k_p, in a range from 3.10^–5 to 3.10^–10 mg².cm⁻⁴.s⁻¹ equivalent to 10^–12 down to 10^–17 cm².s⁻¹. Oxygen partial pressure (\({P}_{{O}_{2}}\)) was monitor and revealed an abnormal consumption of oxygen at the beginning of the thermal exposure. Experiments with an inert material showed parasitic reactions identified by mass spectrometry as combustion of impurities. As oxygen consumption is not only due to oxidation of the sample, corrosion kinetics can’t be deduced from it. Hence, to determine whether the oxygen supply from the gas is a limiting parameter, a model, which quantifies oxygen consumption by sample oxidation within the thermobalance, is proposed.