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Does Passivation of stainless steel survive heat treatment?

Does solution treating and aging of an PH stainless steel affect the passive layer on it that was formed during passivation prior to heat treatment? Basically, I have an Auger spectrum of a stainless steel part after heat treatment that is identical to an Auger spectrum of a non-passivated surface of a stainless steel. So, I was wondering if the 1700°F+ temperature breaks down the passive oxide layer that was formed during passivation?

Tracy Gossett
Engineer - East Aurora, New York, SA
November 1, 2010

Since you have AES test data showing that the passive layer is still good it sounds like you are okay. Normally I will tell customers to always passivate AFTER heat treatment due to the fact that heat treat scale can certainly interfere with the passive layer. However, if you did the heat treatment in a completely inert atmosphere you may be good.

Just to be sure, you may want to run a salt spray test on parts that have been heat treated vs ones that have not. Maybe also parts that have been heat treated and THEN passivated.

Good luck.

Lee Kremer
Stellar Solutions, Inc.

McHenry, Illinois

November 19, 2010

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