Behaviour of stainless steel in natural seawater

In this paper, investigations performed in natural and artificial seawater on stainless steels will be presented. They concerned studies on: biofilm formation, passive layers composition, electrochemical behaviour, localised corrosion and the evolution of these different parameters as a function of ageing time. According to literature surveys, the different aspects will be discussed. Some conclusions will be drawn concerning the actual knowledge on the behaviour of stainless steels in seawater.